Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arcliive 

in  2007  witli  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/artingreeceOOtainiala 


?r 


TAINE'S    ^VORKS 


I.  ENGLISH  LITERATURE.     2  vols. 
//.   ON  INTELLIGENCE. 

III.  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  GREEK  ART. 

IV.  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART  IN  THE 

NE  THERLANDS. 

V.   THE  TDEAL  IN  ART. 
VI  ITAL  Y,  ROME  AND  NAPLES. 
VIL  ITALY,  FLORENCE  AND  VENICE. 
Holt  &  Williams,  Publishers, 

2B  Bond  Street,  New  York. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ART. 


ART 


GREECE 


H.  TAINE 

TRANSLATED    BY 

JOHN    DURAND 


NEW  YORK 
HOLT    &    WILLIAMS 

1871 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871,  by 

nOLT  &  WILLIAMS, 
in  the  Office  of  tlie  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


8TBKEOTTPED  BY 

WILLIAM  McCREA  &  CO.. 

NEWBUBGH,  N.  T. 


stack 
Annex 

[1-1  \ 


TO 


HENRI    LEHMANN 

PAINTER. 


iiSP^13 


TRANSLATOR'S   PREFACE. 


The  following  pages  form  the  Jast  of  the  series 
of  works  on  the  philosophy  of  art  in  various  coun- 
tries issued  by  the  author  previous  to  the  outbreak 
of  the  Franco-Prussian  war.  Four  volumes  are 
now  translated  and  before  the  American  public, 
namely, "  The  Philosophy  of  Art"  (published  in 
London),  setting  forth  the  theory  of  the  subject  in 
a  general  manner,  •'  The  Ideal  in  Art,"  an  exten- 
sion of  this  work,  "  The  Philosophy  of  Art  in  the 
Netherlands,"  and  now  "  The  Philosophy  of  Art 
in  Greece."  There  is  still  another,  "  The  Philoso- 
phy of  Art  in  Italy,"  which  has  been  omitted  on 
account  of  its  subject  matter  being  contained  in 
the  author's  larger  work  on.  Italy,  translated  and 
published  along  with  the  above  series. 


vi  TRANSLATORS   PREFACE. 

The  translator  has  to  express  his  grateful  ac- 
knowledgments to  Mr.  Bryant  for  translations  of 
the  several  passages  quoted  %  the  author  from 
the  Odyssey,  kindly  furnished  uy  him  in  advance  i 
of  the  publication  of  his  version  of  that  poem  ;  \ 
also  for  the  translation  of  an  Olympic  chorus  from 
the  original  Greek  on  page  145 


STJ^OPSIS  OF  OOIsTTEE'TS. 


INTRODUCTION. 


Sculpt  UKE  in  Greece. — Its  remains,  their  insufficiency. 
— Necessity  of  studying  the  milieu.  7 

EACE. 

Influence  of  physical  conditions  on  the  early  settlers  of 

a  country. — Relationship  of  the  Greek  and  the  Latin    10 

§  I.  Circumstances  causing  the  diversity  of  the  two 
characters. — Climate. — Its  mild  effects. — The  soil 
poor  and  mountainous. — Temperance  of  the  inhabi- 
tants.—  Universal  presence  of  the  Sea. —  Induce- 
ments for  the  coasting  trade. — The  Greeks  seamen 
and  navigators. — Their  natural  finesse  and  precocious 
education .  13 

§  II.  Evidences  of  this  character  in  their  history. — 
Ulysses. — The  Graeculus. — Taste  for  mathematics 
and  abstractions. — Invention  in  the  sciences. — Phi- 
losophic theories. — Sophists  and  Disputants. — The 
Attic  taste .  24 

§  III.  Lack  of  vastness  in  their  landscape. — Mountains, 
rivers  and  sea. — Clearness  of  relief  and  transpar- 
ency of  the  atmosphere. — Analogous  effect  in  their 
political  organization. — Small  dimensions  of  the 
State  in  Greece. — The  acquired  aptitude  of  the 
Greek  mind  for  positive  and  clear  conceptions. — 
Evidences  of  this  trait  in  their  history. — Religion. — 


2  SYNOPSIS   OF  CONTENTS. 

Tlie  sentiment  of  the  universal  feeble. — Idea  of  the 
Cosmos. — Their  gods  human  and  limited. — The 
Greek  finally  sports  with  them. — Government. — 
Independence  of  the  Colonies. — Cities  unable  to 
federate. — Limit  and  fragility  of  the  Grecian  State. 
Integrity  and  growth  of  human  nature. — Concep- 
tion, complete  and  circumscribed,  of  human  nature 
and  of  its  destiny  .  33 

§  IV.  Beauty  of  land  and  sky. — Natural  gayety  of  the 
race. — Evidences  of  this  trait  in  their  history. — 
Aristophanes. — Their  idea  of  the  happiness  of  the 
Gods. — Religion  a  festivity. — Opposite  purposes  of 
the  Greek  and  the  Roman  State. — Athenian  expedi- 
tions, democracy  and  amusements. — The  State  be- 
comes a  spectacular  enterprise. — Earnestness  in  sci- 
ence and  philosophy  not  perfect. — Adventurous  taste 
in  theories. — Dialectical  subtleties.  49 

§  V.  Consequences  of  these  qualities  and  defects. — They 
are  genuine  artists. — Sensitiveness  to  delicate  rela- 
tionships, propriety  and  clearness  of  conception  and 
love  of  beauty. — Evidences  of  this  in  their  art. 
— The  Temple. — Its  position. — Its  proportions. — 
Its  construction. — Its  refinements. — Its  ornamenta- 
tion.— Its  paintings. — Its  sculptures. — The  impres- 
sion it  leaves  on  the  mind  63 

THE  PERIOD, 

Difference  between  an  ancient  and  a  modern. — Life  and 
intellect  more  simple  among  the  ancients  than  among 
ourselves  75 

§  I.  Influence  of  climate  on  modern  civilizations. — Man 
has  greater  wants. — The  Costume,  Dwelling  and 
Public  Edifice  of  Greece  and  of  our  time. — Social 
organization,  including  public  business,  military 
art  and  navigation  formerly  and  to-day  77 


Sri^OPSIS   OF  CONTENTS.  3 

§  II.  Influence  of  the  past  on  modern  ciTilization. — 
Dante  and  Homer. — The  idea  of  death  and  futurity 
in  Greece. — Difference  of  conception  and  Bentiment 
in  the  modem. — Difference  between  modern  lan- 
guages and  the  ancient  Greek. — Ancient  culture  and 
education  compared  with  the  modern. — Contrast 
between  a  fresh  and  precocious  civilization  and  an 
elaborate  and  complicated  civilization  88 

§  III.  Effects  of  these  differences  on  the  intellect  and  on 
art. — Mediaeval,  Renaissance  and  contemporary  sen- 
timents, figures  and  characters. — Antique  taste  op- 
posed to  modern  taste. — In  Literature. — In  Sculpture. 
— Inherent  value  of  the  body. — Love  of  gymnastic 
perfection. — The  Head. — Slight  importance  of  physi- 
ogonomy. — Interest  in  physical  action  and  in  inex- 
pressive repose. — Suitableness  of  the  moral  condi- 
tion to  this  form  of  art  103 

INSTITUTIONS. 

§  I.  The  Orchestral  system. — Simultaneous  development 
of  institutions  which  shape  the  Body  and  of  the  arts 
which  shape  the  Statue. — Comparison  of  Greece  in 
the  Vllth  century  with  the  Greece  of  Homer. — 
Greek  lyric  poesy  compared  with  the  modern. — Mu- 
sical pantomime  and  declamation. — Their  universal 
application. — Their  use  in  private  as  well  as  public 
education,  and  their  use  in  public  and  political  af- 
fairs.— Their  use  in  worship. — Pindar's  odes. — Mod- 
els furnished  to  sculpture  by  the  orchestral  system.  119 

2  II.  The  Gymnastic  system. — What  it  was  in  Homer's 
time. — Revised  and  changed  by  the  Dorians. — Prin- 
ciple of  the  State,  of  Education  and  of  Gymnastics 
at  Sparta. — Imitation  or  importation  of  Dorian  cus- 
toms by  other  Greek  communities. — Revival  and 
growth  of  the  games. — Gymnasia. — Athletes. — Im- 


4  SYHfOPSIS   OF  CONTENTS. 

portance  of  gymnastic  education  in  Greece. — Its  effect 
on  the  Body. — Perfection  of  forms  and  attitudes. — 
Taste  for  physical  beauty. — The  statue  follows  the 

model 139 

§  III.  Religion. — Religious  sentiment  in  the  Vth  cen- 
tury.— Analogies  between  this  and  the  epoch  of 
Lorenzo  de  Medici. — Influence  of  the  early  philoso- 
phers and  physicists. — Man  is  still  sensible  of  the 
divine  life  of  natural  objects. — Man  still  distin- 
guishes the  natural  source  of  divine  personages. — 
Sentiments  of  an  Athenian  at  the  great  Panathenaic 
festival. — Choruses  and  Games. — The  Procession. — 
The  Acropolis. — The  Erectheum,  and  the  legends  of 
Erectheus,  Cecrops  and  Triptolemus. — The  Parthe- 
nons  and  the  legends  of  Pallas  and  Poseidon. — The 
Pallas  of  Phidias. — Character  of  the  statue,  imprea- 
sion  on  the  spectator,  and  idea  of  the  sculptor ,  163 


RACE. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  APT  m 
GREECE. 


IXTRODUCTIOX. 

Gwsnsjsaassz — lia  preceding  years  I  hare  pre- 
sented to  yon  the  history  of  the  two  great  ori^nal 
spools  which,  in  modem  times,  hxve  treated  the 
hnman  form,  those  of  Italy  and  tibe  Ketheriands. 
I  hare  now  to  eanapleie  tins  study  by  fimdliarixing 
yoa  with  the  greatest  and  most  <niginal  of  all,  the 
ancient  Greek  schooL  This  time  I  idiall  not  dis- 
course on  painting.  Excepting  a  few  Tases,  scnne 
mosaics  and  the  small  mural  deoonlioiis  at  Pompdi 
and  Hercolanenm,  the  antique  monuments  of  painting 
hare  all  perished;  we  cannot  speak  of  than  with 
certainty.  Bemdes,  in  the  display  of  the  human 
form,  tiiere  was  in  Greece  a  more  nadmial  art,  one 
hrtter  adapted  to  their  social  ways  and  public  sj^rit, 
and  probably  more  cultirated  and  more  perfect,  that 


8  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

of  sculpture ;  Greek  sculpture,  accordingly,  will  be 
the  subject  of  this  course. 

Unfortunately,  in  this,  as  in  all  other  directions, 
antiquity  is  simply  a  ruin.  The  remains  that  have 
come  down  to  us  of  antique  statuary  are  almost 
nothing  alongside  of  what  has  perished.  We  are  re- 
duced to  two  heads,*  by  which  to  conjecture  the 
colossal  divinities  in  whom  the  great  century  had 
expressed  its  thought  and  whose  majesty  filled  the 
temples.  We  have  no  authentic  work  by  Phidias ; 
we  know  nothing  of  Myron,  Polycleitus,  Praxitiles, 
Scopas  and  Lysippus  except  through  copies  and 
more  or  less  remote  and  doubtful  imitations.  The 
beautiful  statues  of  our  museums  belong,  generally, 
to  the  Roman  era,  or,  at  most,  date  from  the  succes- 
sors of  Alexander.  The  best,  moreover,  are  mutila- 
ted. Your  collection  of  casts,f  composed  of  scatter- 
ed torsos,  heads  and  limbs,  resembles  that  of  a  bat- 
tle-field after  a  combat.  Add  to  this,  finally,  the  ab- 
sence of  any  biography  of  the  Greek  masters.     The 

♦  The  head  of  Juno  in  the  Villa  Ludovisi  and  that  of  Jupiter  of 
Otricole. 

t  That  of  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts  studied  by  the  students  forming 
the  anthor's  audience. 


ART  IN   OBBECE.  Q 

most  ingenious  and  most  patient  researches  of  the 
erudites*  have  been  required  to  discover  in  the  half 
of  one  of  Pliny's  chapters,  in  a  few  meagre  descrip- 
tions by  Pausanias  and  some  isolated  phrases  of  Cic- 
ero,  Lucian  and  Quintillian,  the  chronology  of  artists, 
the  affiliation  of  schools,  the  nature  of  talents  and 
-the  gradual  development  and  changes  in  art.  We 
have  but  one  way  to  supply  these  deficiencies;  in 
default  of  a  detailed  history  there  is  general  history ; 
in  order  to  comprehend  this  work  we  are  more  than 
ever  obliged  to  consider  the  people  who  executed  it, 
the  social  habits  which  stimulated  it,  and  the  milieu 
out  of  which  it  sprung. 

*  Geschichte  der  griechischen  Plastik,  von  J.  Overbeck,  and  KumUer 
—GfeschlcMe,  von  Brunn. 

1* 


10  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 


BAOE. 

Let  us  first  try  to  obtain  a  clear  idea  of  the 
race,  and  to  do  this  we  will  study  the  country.  A 
people  always  receives  an  impression  from  the  coun- 
try it  occupies,  but  the  impression  is  the  strongef 
proportionately  to  the  more  uncivilized  and  infan- 
tile condition  of  the  people  at  the  time  of  its  estab- 
lishment. When  the  French  set  out  to  colonize  the 
Island  of  Bourbon  or  Martinique,  and  the  English 
to  settle  North  America  and  Australia,  they  carried 
along  with  them  arms,  implements,  arts,  manufac- 
tures, institutions  and  ideas,  in  short,  an  old  and 
complete  civilization  which  served  to  maintain  their 
acquired  type  and  to  resist  the  influence  of  their 
new  surroundings.  But  when  the  fresh  and  de- 
fenceless man  abandons  himself  to  nature,  she  devel- 
opes,  shapes  and  moulds  him,  the  moral  clay,  as  yet 
quite  soft  and  pliant,  yielding  to  and  being  fash- 
ioned by  the  physical  pressure  against  which  the 
past  provides  him  with  no  support.  Philologists 
show  us  a  primitive  epoch  where  Indians,  Persians, 


ABT-   IN   GREECE.  H 

Germans,  Celts,  Latins  and  Greeks  had  a  language 
in  common  and  the  same  degree  of  culture ;  another 
epoch,  less  ancient,  when  the  Latins  and  the  Greeks, 
already  separated  from  their  brethren,  were  still 
united,*  acquainted  with  wine,  living  on  tillage  and 
grazing,  possessing  row-boats  and  having  added  to 
their  old  Vedic  gods  the  new  one  of  Hestia  or  Ves- 
ta, the  domestic  fireside.  These  are  but  little  more 
than  the  rudiments  of  progress ;  if  they  are  no  long- 
er savages  they  are  still  barbarians.  From  tliis 
time  forth  the  two  branches  that  have  issued  from 
the  same  stock,  begin  to  diverge  ;  on  encountering 
them  later  we  find  that  their  structure  and  fruit  in- 
stead of  being  alike  are  difierent,  one,  meanwhile, 
having  grown  up  in  Italy  and  the  other  in  Greece, 
and  we  are  led  to  regard  the  environment  of  the 
Greek  plant  in  order  to  ascertain  whether  the  so^ 
and  atmosphere  which  have  nourished  do  not  ex- 
plain the  peculiarities  of  its  form  and  the  direction 

of  its  development. 

*  MonmiBen,  Roemische  Geschichte,  Vol.  I.,  p.  21. 


12  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 


Let  us  examine  a  map.  Greece  is  a  peninsula 
in  the  shape  of  a  triangle,  with  its  base  resting  on 
Turkey  in  Europe,  extending  towards  the  south, 
burying  itself  in  the  sea  and  narrowing  at  the  Isth- 
mus of  Corinth  to  form  another  peninsula  beyond, 
the  Peloponnesus,  still  more  southern,  and  a  sort  of 
mulberry  leaf  attached  by  a  slender  stalk  to  the 
main  land.  Add  to  this  a  hundred  islands  with  the 
Asiatic  coast  opposite ;  a  fringe  of  small  countries 
stitched  fast  to  the  great  barbaric  continent  and  a 
sprinkling  of  scattered  islands  on  the  blue  sea 
which  the  fringe  surrounds — such  is  the  land  that 
has  formed  and  maintained  this  highly  intelligent 
and  precocious  people.  It  was  singularly  adapted  to 
the  work.  To  the  north*  of  the  ^gean  Sea  the  cli- 
mate is  still  severe,  like  that  of  the  centre  of  Ger- 
many ;  southern  fruits  are  not  known  in  Roumelia, 
and  its  coast  produces  no  myrtles.  Descending  to- 
wards the  south,  and  on  entering  Greece,  the  con- 

•  Curtiua,  GriescheBche  Geschichte,  Vol.  I.,  p.  4. 


ART  IN   GREECE.  13 

trast  becomes  striking.  Forests  always  green  be- 
gin in  Thessaly,  at  the  40th  degree  ;  at  the  39th,  in 
Phthiotis,  in  the  mild  atmosphere  of  the  sea  and  the 
coast,  rice,  cotton  and  the  olive  grow.  In  Euboea 
and  Attica  the  palm-tree  appears,  and  almonds  in 
the  Cyclades ;  on  the  eastern  coast  of  Argolis  we 
find  thick  groves  of  the  orange  and  the  lemon  ;  the 
African  date  lives  in  one  corner  of  Crete.  At  Ath- 
ens, which  is  the  centre  of  Greek  civilization,  the 
finest  fruits  of  the  South  grow  without  cultivation. 
Frost  is  scarcely  seen  more  than  once  in  twenty 
years ;  the  extreme  heats  of  the  summer  are  modi- 
fied by  the  sea-breeze,  and,  save  a  few  gales  in 
Thrace  and  the  blasts  of  the  sirocco,  the  tempera- 
ture is  delightful.  Nowadays  "  the  people  are  ac- 
customed to  sleeping  in  the  streets  from  the  middle 
of  May  to  the  end  of  September,  while  the  women 
sleep  on  the  roofs."*  In  suoh  a  country  everybody 
lives  out  of  doors.  The  ancients  themselves  regard- 
ed their  climate  as  a  gift  of  the  gods.  "  Mild  and 
clement,"  said  Euripides,  "  is  our  atmosphere ;  the 
cold  of  winter  is  for  us  without  rigor  and  the  ar- 
*  About:  La  Orece  contempwaine,  p.  345. 


14  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

rows  of  Phoebus  do  not  wound  us/'  And  elsewhere 
he  adds :  "  The  Athenians  happy  of  old,  and  the  de- 
scendants of  the  blessed  gods,  feeding  on  the  most 
exalted  wisdom  of  a  country  sacred  and  uncon- 
quered,  always  tripping  elegantly  through  the  pur- 
est atmosphere,  where  they  say  that  of  old  the 
golden-haired  Harmonia  gave  birth  to  the  chaste 
nine  Pierian  muses.  And  they  report  also  that 
Venus,  drawing  in  her  breath  from  the  stream  of 
the  fair-flowing  Cephisus,  breathed  over  this  country 
gentle,  sweetly  breathing  gales  of  air ;  and  always 
entwining  in  her  hair  the  fragrant  wreath  of  roses, 
sends  the  loves  as  accessory  to  wisdom ;  the  assist- 
ants to  every  virtue."*  These  are  the  fine  expres- 
sions of  a  poet,  but  through  the  ode  we  see  the 
truth.  A  people  formed  by  such  a  climate  develops 
faster  and  more  harmoniously  than  any  other ;  man 
is  neither  prostrated  nor  enervated  by  excessive  heat, 
nor  chilled  or  indurated  by  severe  cold.  He  is 
neither  condemned  to  dreamy  inactivity,  nor  to  per- 
petual labor ;  he  does  not  lag  behind  in  mystic  con- 

*  Medea  (Buckley's  translation).    See  also  the  celebrated  chorus  in 
the  CEdipus  at  Cdlonus  of  Sophocles. 


ART  IN  GREECE.  15 

templation  nor  in  brutal  barbarism.  Compare  a 
Neapolitan  or  a  Provengal  with  a  man  of  Brittany, 
a  Hollander  or  a  Hindoo,  and  you  will  recognize  bow 
the  mildness  and  moderation  of  physical  nature  en- 
dow the  soul  with  vivacity  and  so  balance  it  as  to 
lead  the  mind  thus  disposed  and  alert  to  thought 
and  to  action. 

Two  characteristics  of  the  soil  operate  alike  in 
this  sense.  In  the  first  place,  Greece  is  a  net- work 
of  mountains.  Pindus,  its  central  summit,  extend- 
ing towards  the  south  with  Othrys,  -^ta,  Parnassus, 
Helicon,  Cithaeron  and  their  bastions,  form  a  chain 
the  multiplied  links  of  which  cross  the  isthmus,  rise 
up  again  and  intermingle  in  the  Peloponnesus ;  be- 
yond are  the  islands  consisting  of  emergent  spines 
and  the  tops  of  mountains.  This  territory,  thus  em- 
bossed, has  scarcely  any  plains ;  rock  abounds  every- 
where as  in  our  Provence ;  three-fifths  of  the  surface 
of  it  is  unfit  for  cultivation.  "  Look  at  the  Views" 
and  "Landscapes"  by  M.  de  Stackelberg, — every- 
where barren  stones,  small  rivers  or  mountain  tor- 
rents leaving  between  their  half-dried  beds  and  the 
sterile  rock  a  narrow  strip  of  productive  ground. 


16    .  TUE  PHILOaOPHT  OF 

Herodotus  already  contrasts  Sicily  and  Southern 
Italy,  those  fat  nurses,  with  meagre  Greece,  "  which 
at  its  Virth  had  poverty  for  its  foster-sister."  In  At- 
tica, especially,  the  soil  is  lighter  and  thinner  than 
anywhere  else ;  the  olive,  the  viiie,  barley  and  a  little 
wheat  are  all  that  it  provided  man  with.  In  these 
beautiful  islands  of  marble,  sparkling  on  the  azure  of 
the  -^gean  Sea,  is  found  now  and  then  a  sacred 
grove,  the  cypress,  the  laurel  and  the  palm,  some 
bouquet  of  rich  verdure,  scattered  vines  on  rocty 
slopes,  fine  fruits  in  the  gardens  and  a  few  scanty 
crops  in  the  hollows  or  on  a  declivity ;  but  all  this 
was  more  calculated  for  the  eye  and  for  a  delicate 
sensibility  than  for  the  stomach  and  merely  physical 
wants.  Such  a  country  forms  lithe,  active,  sober 
mountaineers  fed  on  the  purity  of  its  atmosphere. 
At  the  present  day  "  the  food  of  an  English  laborer 
would  suffice  in  Greece  for  a  family  of  six  persons. 
The  rich  are  quite  content  with  a  dish  of  vegetables 
for  one  of  their  repasts ;  the  poor  with  a  handful  of 
olives  or  a  bit  of  salt  fish.  The  people  at  large  eat 
meat  at  Easter  for  the  whole  year."*  It  is  interest- 
*  About:   La  Grice  contemporaine,  p.  41. 


ART  IN   GREECE. 


17 


ing  in  this  respect  to  see  them  at  Athens  in  summer. 
"  Epicures  in  a  group  of  seven  or  eight  persons  are 
dividing  up  a  sheep's  head  which  cost  six  cents. 
These  temperate  men  buy  a  slice  of  water-melon  or 
a  big  cucumber  which  they  eat  like  an  apple." 
There  are  no  drunkards  among  them ;  they  are  great 
drinkers  but  always  of  pure  water.  "  If  they  enter  a 
cabaret,  it  is  to  gossip."  In  a  cafe  "  they  call  for  a 
penny  cup  of  coffee,  a  glass  of  water,  a  light  for  their 
cigarettes,  a  newspaper,  and  a  set  of  dominoes." 
Such  a  regimen  is  not  calculated  to  make  the  mind 
torpid ;  in  lessening  the  wants  oi  the  stomach  it  in- 
creases those  of  the  understanding.  The  ancients 
themselves  noticed  similar  contrasts  between  Bceotia 
and  Attica,  and  the  Boeotian  and  the  Athenian.  One, 
fed  amidst  fertile  plains  and  in  a  dense  atmosphere, 
accustomed  to  gross  food  and  the  eels  of  Lake  Co- 
pais,  was  a  great  eater  and  drinker  and  of  a  sluggish 
intellect ;  the  other,  born  on  the  poorest  soil  in  Greece, 
contented  with  the  head  of  a  fish,  an  onion  and  a  few 
olives,  growing  up  in  a  light  transparent  and  lu- 
minous atmosphere,  displayed  from  his  birth  a  sin- 
gular   keenness    and   vivacity    of   intellect,   cease- 


18  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

lessly  inventive  and  enterprising,  sensitive  and  ap- 
preciative regardless  of  all  other  things,  and  "  pos- 
sessing, apparently,  nothing  peculiar  to  himself  but 
thought."* 

In  the  second  place,  if  Greece  is  a  land  of  moun- 
tains it  is  likewise  a  land  of  sea-coasts.  Although 
smaller  than  Portugal  it  has  more  of  these  than  all 
Spain.  The  sea  penetrates  the  country  through  an 
infinity  of  gulfs,  indentations,  fissures  and  cavities  ; 
in  the  various  views  brought  back  by  travellers  you 
will  observe,  every  other  one,  even  in  the  interior, 
some  blue  band,  triangle,  or  luminous  semi-circle  on 
the  horizon.  Generally  it  is  framed  in  by  project- 
ing rocks  or  by  islands  which  ajDproach  each  other 
and  form  a  natural  harbor.  A  situation  like  this 
fosters  a  maritime  life,  especially  where  a  poor  soil 
and  a  rocky  shore  do  not  sufiice  to  support  the  in- 
habitants. In  primitive  times  there  is  but  one  spe- 
cies of  navigation,  and  that  is  coasting,  and  no  .sea 
is  better  adapted  to  invite  a  border  trade.  Every 
morning  a  north  wind  springs  up  to  waft  vessels 
from  Athens  to  the  Cyclades  ;  every  evening  a  con- 

♦  Thucydides,  Book  I.,  Chap.  LXX. 


AET  m   GREECE.  19 

trary  breeze  rises  to  carry  them  back.  Between 
Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  islands  occur  like  the  stones 
of  a  ford ;  in  clear  weather  a  ship  on  this  track  in 
always  in  sight  of  land.  From  Corcyra  Italy  ia 
visible,  from  Cape  Malea  the  peaks  of  Crete,  from 
Crete  the  mountains  of  Rhodes,  from  Rhodes,  Asia 
Minor;  two  days'  sail  suffice  to  carry  one  from 
Crete  to  Cyrene,  and  only  three  are  required  to  go 
from  Crete  to  Egypt.  Still  to-day  "there  is  the 
stuff  of  a  sailor  in  every  Greek  you  meet."*     In  this 

*  About :    La  Grece  contemporaine,  p.  146.    Two  islanders  chance  to 
meet  in  the  port  of  Syra,  and  the  following  dialogue  ensues : 

"Good-day,  brother,  how  are  you?" 

"Very  well,  thank  you;  what  is  the  news?" 

"Demitri,  the  son  of  Nicholas,  has  got  back  from  Marseilles." 

"  Did  he  make  any  money  ?" 

"Twenty-three  thousand  drachmae,  they  say.    That's  a  good  deal." 

"  I  made  up  my  mind  long  ago  that  I  ought  to  go  to  Marseilles.    But 
I  have  no  boat." 

"We  two  will  make  one  if  you  say  so.    Have  you  any  timber?" 

"A  little." 

"  Everybody  has  enough  for  a  boat.    I  have  some  canvas  and  my 
cousin  John  has  enough  rigging;  we  will  put  all  this  together." 

"Who  will  be  captain?" 

"John,  for  he  has  already  sailed  there." 

"We  must  have  a  boy  to  help  us." 

"There  is  my  little  godson,  Basil." 
|L>        "A  child  only  eight  years  old  1    He's  too  small." 
^K       "Anybody  is  big  enough  to  go  to  sea." 


20  TUE  PHILOSOPHT  OF 

country,  with  a  population  of  only  900,000,  there 
were,  in  1840,  30,000  sailors  and  4,000  vessels;  they 
do  nearly  the  whole  of  the  coasting  business  of  the 
Mediterranean.  We  find  the  same  ways  and  habits 
in  the  time  of  Homer ;  they  are  constantly  launch- 
ing a  ship  on  the  sea  ;  Ulysses  builds  one  with  his 
own  hands ;  they  cruise  all  over,  trading  and  pil- 
laging the  surrounding  coasts.  The  Greeks  were 
merchants,  travellers,  pirates,  courtiers,  and  adven- 
turers at  the  start  and  throughout  their  history ; 
employing  skill  or  force  they  set  out  to  drain  the 
great  Oriental  kingdoms  or  the  barbaric  populations 
of  the  west,  bringing  back  gold,  silver,  ivory,  slaves, 
ship-timber,  all  kinds  of  precious  merchandise 
bought  above  and  below  the  market,  other  people's 
ideas  and  inventions,  those  of  Egypt,  of  Phoenicia, 

"But  what  cargo  shall  we  take?" 

"Our  neighbor  Petros  has  some  l>ark  (for  tanning) ;  daddy  has  got 
a  few  casks  of  wine,  and  I  know  a  man  in  Tinos  who  has  some  cotton. 
We  will  stop  at  Smyrna,  if  you  say  so,  for  a  freight  of  silk." 

The  vessel  is  built  well  or  ill  as  it  happens ;  the  crew  is  obtained  in 
one  or  two  families,  and,  from  friends  and  neighbors,  whatever  merchan- 
dise they  may  choose  to  offer.  They  set  out  for  Marseilles  by  the  way 
of  Smyrna  or  even  Alexandria,  sell  the  cargo  and  take  another ;  on  re- 
turning to  Syra,  the  freight  is  found  to  pay  for  the  vessel  and  the  part- 
ners divide  the  profits  out  of  a  few  drachmse  left  over. 


ART  m   GREECE.  21 

of  Chaldea,  of  Persia,*  and  of  Etruria.  A  regime 
of  this  kind  quickens  and  sharpens  the  intellect  to 
a  remarkable  degree.  Proof  of  it  lies  in  the  fact 
that  the  most  precocious,  the  most  civilized  and  most 
ingenious  people  of  ancient  Greece  were  mariners  ; 
the  lonians  of  Asia  Minor,  the  Colonists  of  Magna 
Grsecia,  the  Corinthians,  JEginetans,  Sicyonians  and 
Athenians.  The  Arcadians,  confined  to  their  moun- 
tains, remained  rural  and  simple ;  and  likewise  the 
Acarnanians,  the  Epirots  and  the  Locrians  who,  with 
their  outlet  on  a  less  favorable  sea,  and  not  being 
sea-faring,  remain  semi-barbarous  to  the  last ;  their 
neighbors,  the  Etolians,  at  the  time  of  the  Roman 
conquest  possessed  bourgs  only,  without  walls,  and 
were  simply  rude  pillagers.  The  spur  which  stimu- 
lated the  others  did  not  reach  them.  Such  are  the 
physical  circumstances  which,  from  the  first,  served 
to  arouse  the  Greek  intellect.  This  people  may  be 
compared  to  a  swarm  of  bees  born  under  a  mUd  sky 
but  on  a  meagre  soil,  turning  to  account  the  routes 
open  to  it  through  the   air,  foraging  everywhere, 

♦Alcseus  extols  hia  brother  for  having  fought  in  Babylon  and  for 
bringing  therefrom  an  ivory-handled  svrord. 


k 


22  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

gathering  supplies,  swarming,  relying  on  its  own 
stings  and  dexterity  for  protection,  building  deli- 
cate edifices,  compounding  delicious  honey,  excited 
and  humming  amidst  the  huge  creatures  surrounding 
it,  clashing  haphazard  and  knowing  hut  one  master 
under  whom  to  support  itself. 

Even  in  our  days,  fallen  as  they  are,  "  they  have 
as  much  mind  as  any  people  in  the  world ;  there  is 
no  intellectual  efibrt  of  which  they  are  not  capable. 
They  comprehend  well  and  quickly ;  they  acquire 
with  wonderful  facility  every  thing  they  wish  to 
learn.  Young  merchants  soon  qualify  themselves 
to  speak  five  or  six  languages."*  Mechanics  are 
able  in  a  few  months  to  work  at  a  somewhat  diffi- 
cult trade.  A  whole  village,  with  its  chief  at  the 
head  of  it,  will  interrogate  and  attentively  listen  to 
travellers.  "  A  most  remarkable  thing  is  the  inde- 
fatigable application  of  school-children,"  little  and 
big ;  hired  persons  find  time  while  fulfilling  their 
engagements  to  pass  examinations  as  lawyers  or 
physicians.  "  You  meet  at  Athens  every  kind  of 
student  except  the  student  who  don't  study."     In 

*  About :    La  Grece  contemporaine. 


ART  IN  OBEEGE.  23 

this  respect  no  race  has  been  so  well  endowed  by 
nature,  all  circumstances  apparently  having  con- 
curred to  unfetter  the  mind  and  sharpen  the  facul- 
ties. 


24  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 


II. 

Let  us  follow  out  this  feature  in  their  history. 
Whether  we  consider  it  practically  or  speculatively,  it 
is  always  keenness  of  mind,  adroitness  and  ingenuity, 
which  manifest  themselves.  It  is  a  strange  thing,  at 
the  dawn  of  civilization,  when  man  elsewhere  is  excit- 
able, rude  and  childish,  to  see  one  of  their  two  heroes, 
the  wise  Ulysses,  cautious,  prudent  and  crafty,  fer- 
tile in  expedients,  inexhaustible  in  falsehood,  the 
able  navigator,  always  attentive  to  his  own  interests. 
Returning  home  in  disguise,  he  counsels  his  wife  to 
get  from  her  suitors  presents  of  necklaces  and  brace- 
lets, and  he  does  not  slay  them  until  they  have  en- 
riched his  mansion.  When  Circe  surrenders  herself 
to  him,  or  when  Calypso  proposes  his  departure,  he 
takes  the  precaution  of  binding  them  by  an  oath. 
Ask  him  his  name  and  he  has  always  ready  some 
fresh  and  appropriate  story  and  genealogy.  Pallas 
herself,  to  whom,  without  knowing  her,  he  relates 
his  stories,  praises  and  admires  him : 

Full  Bhrewd  were  he  and  practised  in  deceit, 
Who  should  surpass  thee  in  the  ways  of  craft, 


ART  IN   GREECE.  25 

Even  thougli  he  were  a  god, — thou  unabashed 
And  prompt  with  shifts,  and  measureless  in  wiles.* 

And  the  sons  are  worthy  of  their  sire.  At  the 
end,  as  at  the  beginning  of  civilization,  the  intellect 
predominates ;  it  was  always  the  stamp  of  the  char- 
acter, and  now  it  survives  them.  Greece  once  subju- 
gated, we  see  the  Greek  a  paid  dilettant,  sophist,  rhe- 
torician, sciibe,  critic  and  philosopher;  then  the 
Graeculus  of  the  Roman  dominion,  the  parasite,  buf- 
foon and  pander,  ever  alert,  sprightly  and  useful ;  the 
complacent  Protean  who,  good  in  every  line,  adapts 
himself  to  all  characters,  and  gets  out  of  all  scrapes ; 
infinite  in  dexterity,  the  first  ancestor  of  the  Seapins 
Mascarilles  and  other  clever  rogues,  who,  with  no 
other  heritage  but  their  art,  live  upon  it  at  other  peo- 
ple's expense. 

Let  us  return  to  their  most  brilliant  era  and  con- 
sider their  master  work,  science,  that  which  beet 
commends  them  to  the  admiration  of  humanity  and 
which,  if  founded  by  them,  is  owing  to  the  same  in- 
stinct and  the  same  necessities.  The  Phenician,  who 
is  a  merchant,  employs  arithmetical  rules  in  adjust- 

*  The  Odyssey,  translated  by  W.  C.  Bryant.  * 
•       2 


26  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

ing  his  accounts.  The  Egyptian,  surveyor  and 
stone-cutter,  has  geometrical  processes  hy  which  to 
pile  up  his  blocks,  and  estimate  the  area  of  his  field 
annually  inundated  by  the  Mle.  The  Greek  re- 
ceives from  them  these  technical  systems,  but  they 
do  not  suffice  him ;  he  is  not  content  with  applying 
them  commercially  and  industrially ;  he  is  investiga- 
tive and  speculative;  he  wants  to  know  the  why, 
the  cause  of  things  ;*  he  seeks  abstract  proof  and  fol- 
lows the  delicate  thread  of  ideas  which  leads  from  one 
theorem  to  another.  Thales,  more  than  six  hundred 
years  before  Christ,  devotes  himself  to  the  demon- 
stration of  the  equality  of  the  angles  of  the  isosceles 
triangle.  The  ancients  relate  that  Pythagoras,  trans- 
ported with  joy  on  solving  the  problem  of  the  square 
of  the  hypotenuse,  promised  the  gods  a  hecatomb. 
They  are  interested  in  abstract  truth.     Plato,  on  see- 

*  Plato's  "  Thesetetus."  Take  the  whole  of  the  part  of  Theeetetus  and 
the  comparison  he  makes  between  figures  and  numbers. — See  likewise  the 
opening  of  the  "  Rivals."  Herodotus  (Book  II.,  29)  is  very  instructive  in 
this  connection.  Among  the  Egyptians  no  one  could  reply  to  him  when 
he  demanded  the  cause  of  the  periodical  rise  of  the  Nile.  Neither  the 
priests  nor  the  laymen  had  made  this  matter,  which  affected  them  so  close- 
ly, a  subject  of  inquiry  or  of  hypothesis. — The  Greeks,  on  the  contrary, 
had  already  suggested  three  explanations  of  the  phenomenon.  Herodotus 
discusses  these  and  suggests  a  fourth. 


ART  IN  QEEEQE.  27 

ing  the  Sicilian  mathematicians  apply  their  discover- 
ies to  machinery,  reproaches  them  with  degrading 
science  j  in  his  view  of  it  they  ought  to  confine  them- 
selves to  the  study  of  ideal  lines.  In  fact  they  al- 
ways promoted  it  without  concerning  themselves 
about  its  utility.  For  example,  their  researches  on 
the  properties  of  conic  sections  found  no  application 
until  seventeen  centuries  later,  when  Kepler  discov- 
ered the  laws  which  control  the  movements  of  the 
planets.  In  this  work,  which  constitutes  the  basis 
of  all  oUr  exact  -sciences,  their  analysis  is  so  rigid 
that  in  England  Euclid's  geometry  still  serves  as  the 
student's  text-book.  To  decompose  ideas  and  note 
their  dependencies ;  to  form  a  chain  of  them  in  such 
a  way  as  to  leave  no  link  missing,  the  whole  chain 
being  fastened  on  to  some  incontestable  axiom  or 
group  of  familiar  experiences ;  to  delight  in  forging, 
attaching,  multiplying  and  testing  all  these  chains 
with  no  motive  but  that  of  a  desire  to  find  them  al- 
ways more  numerous  and  more  certain,  is  the  especial 
end^ment  of  the  Greek  mind.  The  Greeks  think 
for  the  purpose  of  thinking,  and  hence  their  organiza- 
tion of  the  sciences.     We  do  not  establish  one  to-day 


28  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

which  does  not  rest  on  the  foundations  they  laid ;  we 
are  frequently  indebted  to  them  for  its  first  story  and 
sometimes  an  entire  wing  ;*  a  series  of  inventors  suc- 
ceed each  other  in  mathematics  from  Pythagoras  to 
Archimedes ;  in  astronomy  from  Thales  and  Pythag- 
oras to  Hipparchus  and  Ptolemy ;  in  the  natural 
sciences  from  Hippocrates  to  Aristotle  and  the  Alex- 
andrian anatomists;  in  history  from  Herodotus  to 
Thucydides  and  Polybius ;  in  logic,  politics,  morality 
and  aesthetics  from  Plato,  Xenophon  and  Aristotle 
to  the  Stoics  and  neo-platonicians. — Men  so  thorough- 
ly absorbed  by  ideas  could  not  fail  to  admire  the 
most  beautiful  of  all,  the  university  of  ideas.  For 
eleven  centuries,  from  Thales  to  Justinian,  their  phi- 
losophy never  ceased  to  grow ;  always  some  new  sys- 
tem arose  blooming  above  or  alongside  of  the  old 
systems;  even  when  speculation  is  imprisoned  by 
Christian  orthodoxy  it  makes  its  way  and  presses 
through  the  crevices ;  "  the  Greek  language,"  says 
one  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  "  is  the  mother  of 
heresies."     W©  of  to-day  still  find  in  this  vast  store- 

♦  Euclid,  Aristotle's  theory  of  the  Syllogism  and  the  Morality  of  the 
Stoics. 


ART  IN   GREECE.  29 

house  our  most  fecund  hypotheses  ;*  thinking  so 
much  and  with  such  a  sound  mind  their  conjectures 
are  frequently  found  in  accordance  with  the  truth. 

In  this  respect  their  performance  has  only  been 
surpassed  by  their  zeal.  Two  occupations,  in  their  I 
eyes,  distinguished  man  from  the  brute  and  the 
Greek  from  the  barbarian — a  devotion  to  public  af- 
fairs and  the  study  of  philosophy.  "We  have  only/ 
to  read  Plato's  Theages  and  Protagoras  to  see  the 
steady  enthusiasm  with  which  the  youngest  pursued 
ideas  through  the  briars  and  brambles  of  dialectics. 
Their  taste  for  dialectics  itself  is  still  more  striking ; 
they  never  weary  in  its  circuitous  course  ;  they  are 
as  fond  of  the  chase  as  the  game ;  they  enjoy  the 
journey  as  much  as  the  journey's  end.  The  Greek 
is  much  more  a  reasoner  than  a  metaphysician  or  sa- 
vant ;  he  delights  in  delicate  distinctions  and  subtle 
analysis ;  he  revels  in  the  weaving  and  super-refine- 
ment of  spiders'  webs.f     His   dexterity  in  this   re- 

*  Plato's  ideal  types,  Aristotle's  Final  causes,  the  Atomic  theory  of 
Epioarus  and  the  classifications  of  the  Stoics. 

+  See,  in  Aristotle,  "Theory  of  Model  Syllogisms,"  and  in  Plato, 
the  "Parmenides"  and  "Sophistes."  There  is  nothing  more  ingenious 
and  more  fragile  than  the  whole  of  Aristotle's  Physics  and  Physiology, 


30  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

spect  is  unequalled ;  it  is  of  little  consequence  to  him 
whether  this  over-complicated  and  attenuated  web 
is  of  any  use  in  theory  or  in  practice ;  it  satisfies 
him  to  see  the  threads  spun  out  and  crossing  each 
other  in  imperceptible  and  symmetrical  meshes. 
Herein  does  the  national  weakness  manifest  the  na- 
tional talent.  Greece  is  the  mother  of  disputants, 
rhetoricians  and  sophists.  Nowhere  else  has  a 
group  of  eminent  and  popular  men  been  seen  teach- 
ing with  the  same  success  and  fame  as  Gorgias, 
Protagoras  and  Polus,  the  art  of  making  the  worse 
appear  the  better  cause,  and  of  plausibly  maintain- 
ing a  foolish  proposition  however  absurd.*  It  is 
Greek  rhetoricians  who  are  the  eulogists  of  pesti- 
lence, fever,  bugs,  Polyphemus  and  Tliersites;  a 
Greek  philosopher  asserted  that  a  wise  man  could 
be  happy  in  the  brazen  bull  of  Phalaris.  Schools 
existed,  like  that  of  Cameades,  in  which  pleadings 
could  be  made  on  both  sides;  others,  like  that  of 
^nesidemus,  to  establish  that  no  proposition  is 
truer  than  that  of  the  contrary  proposition.     In  the 

as  may  be  seen  in  his  "Problems."    The  waste  of  mental  power  and 
sagacity  by  theee  schools  is  enormous. 
*  The  "Eutbydemus''  of  Plato. 


ABT  m   GREECE.  31 

legacy  bequeathed  to  us  by  antiquity  a  collection  is 
found,  the  richest  we  have,  of  captious  arguments 
and  paradoxes ;  their  subtleties  would  have  been 
confined  to  a  narrow  field  could  they  not  have  pushed 
their  way  as  well  on  the  side  of  error  as  on  that  of 
truth. 

Such  is  the  intellectual  finesse  which,  trans- 
ferred from  reasoning  to  literature,  fashioned  the 
"Attic"  taste,  that  is  to  say,  an  appreciation  of 
niceties,  a  sportive  grace;  delicate  irony,  simplicity 
of  style,  ease  of  discourse  and  beauty  of  demonstra- 
tion. It  is  said  that  Apelles  went  to  see  Proto- 
genes,  and,  not  caring  to  leave  his  name,  took  a  pen- 
cil and  drew  a  fine  curved  line  on  a  panel  ready  at 
hand.  Protogenes,  on  returning,  looked  at  the 
mark  and  exclaimed,  "  No  one  but  Apelles  could 
have  traced  that !"  then,  seizing  the  pencil,  he  drew 
around  it  a  second  line  BtUl  more  refined  and  extend- 
ed, and  ordered  it  to  be  shown  to  the  stranger. 
Apelles  came  back,  and,  mortified  to  see  himself  sur- 
passed, intersected  the  first  two  contours  by  a  third, 
the  delicacy  of  which  exceeded  both.  When  Pro 
togenes  saw  it,  he  exclaimed :  "  I  am  vanquished,  let 


32  TSE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

me  embrace  my  master !"  This  legend  furnishes  us 
with  the  least  imperfect  idea  of  the  Greek  mind. 
We  have  the  subtle  line  within  which  it  circum- 
scribes the  contours  of  things,  and  the  native  dex- 
terity, precision  and  agility  with  which  it  circulates 
amidst  ideas  to  distinguish  and  bind  them  together. 


ART  m   GBEEGE.  33 


III. 

This,  however,  is  but  one  feature ;  there  is  an- 
other. Let  us  I'evert  back  to  the  soil  and  we  shall 
see  the  second  added  to  the  first.  This  time,  again, 
it  is  the  physical  structure  of  the  country  which  has 
stamped  l3ie  intellect  of  the  race  with  that  which 
w^e  find  in  its  labors  and  in  its  history.  There  is  in 
this  country  nothing  of  the  vast  or  gigantic ;  out- 
ward objects  possess  no  disproportionate,  over- 
whelming dimensions.  We  see  nothing  there  like 
the  huge  Himalaya,  nothing  like  those  boundless  en- 
tanglements of  rank  vegetation,  those  enormous  riv- 
ers described  in  Indian  poems  ;  there  is  nothing  like 
the  interminable  forests,  limitless  plains  and  the 
wild  and  shoreless  ocean  of  Northern  Europe. 
The  eye  there  seizes  the  forms  of  objects  without 
difficulty  and  retains  a  precise  image  of  them; 
every  object  is  medial,  proportioned,  easily  and 
clearly  perceptible  to  the  senses.     The  mountains  of 

Corinth,  Attica,  BcEotia  and  the  Peloponnesus  are 
2* 


34  THE  PHILOSOPEY  OF 

from  three  to  four  thousand  feet  high ;  only  a  few 
reach  six  thousand;  you  must  go  to  the  extreme 
north  of  Greece  to  find  a  summit  like  those  of  the 
Alps  and  the  Pyrenees,  and  then  it  is  Olympus,  of 
which  they  make  the  home  of  the  gods.  The  Pe- 
neus  and  the  Achelous,  the  largest  rivers,  are,  at 
most,  but  thirty  or  forty  leagues  long ;  the  others, 
usually,  are  mere  brooks  and  torrents.  The  sea  it- 
self, so  terrible  and  threatening  at  the  north,  is  here 
a  sort  of  lake ;  we  have  no  feeling  of  the  solitude 
of  immensity;  some  waste  or  island  is  always  in 
sight ;  it  does  not  leave  on  the  mind  a  sinister  im- 
pression ;  it  does  not  appear  like  a  ferocious  and 
destructive  being ;  it  has  no  leaden,  pallid  and  ca- 
daverous hue ;  the  coasts  are  not  ravaged  by  it  and 
it  has  no  tides  strewing  them  with  mire  and  stony 
fragments.  It  is  lustrous,  and  according  to  an  ex- 
pression of  Homer,  "  dazzling,  wine-colored,  violet- 
colored;"  the  ruddy  rocks  of  its  shores  enclose 
its  bright  surface  within  a  fretted  bcrrder  which 
seems  like  the  frame  to  a  picture.  Imagine  fresh 
and  primitive  natures  having  such  phenomena  for 
their  cultivation  and  constant  education.     Through 


AST  IN   GREECE.  35 

these  they  obtain  the  habit  of  clear  and  defined  im- 
agery and  avoid  the  vague  tumult,  the  impetuous 
revery,  the  anxious  apprehension  of  the  "  beyond." 
Thus  is  a  mental  mould  formed  out  of  which,  later, 
all  ideas  are  to  issue  in  relief.  Countless  circum- 
stances of  soil  and  climate  combine  to  perfect  it. 
In  this  country  the  mineral  character  of  the  ground 
is  visible  and  appears  much  stronger  than  in  our  own 
Provence ;  it  is  not  weakened  or  effaced,  as  in  our 
northern  moist  countries,  by  the  universally  diffused 
strata  of  arable  soil  and  verdant  vegetation.  The 
skeleton  of  the  earth,  the  geologic  bonework,  the 
purplish-gray  marble  peers  out  in  jutting  rocks,  pro- 
longs itself  in  naked  crags,  cuts  its  sharp  profile 
against  the  sky,  encloses  valleys  with  peaks  and 
crests  so  that  the  landscape,  furrowed  with  bold 
fractures  and  gashed  everywhere  with  sudden 
breaches  and  angles,  looks  as  if  sketched  by  a 
vigorous  hand  whose  caprices  and  fancy  in  no  respect 
impair  the  certainty  and  precision  of  its  touch.  The 
quality  of  the  atmosphere  increases  likewise  this 
saliency  of  objects.  That  of  Attica,  especially,  is 
of  extraordinary  transparency.     On  turning  Cape 


36  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

Sunium  the  helmet  of  Pallas  on  the  Acropolis  could 
be  seen  at  a  distance  of  several  leagues.  Mount 
Hymettus,  two  leagues  oif  from  Athens,  seems  to  a 
European  just  landed  a  walk  before  breakfast.  The 
vapory  mist  with  which  our  atmosphere  is  always 
filled  does  not  arise  to  soften  distant  contours ;  they 
are  not  uncertain,  half-commingled  and  blotted  out, 
but  are  detached  from  their  background  like  the  fig- 
ures on  antique  vases.  Add,  finally,  the  exquisite 
brilliancy  of  the  sun  which  pushes  to  extremes  the 
contrast  between  light  parts  and  shadows  and 
which  gives  an  opposition  of  masses  to  precision 
of  lines.  Thus  does  Nature,  through  the  forms 
with  which  she  peoples  the  mind,  directly  incline  the 
Greek  to  fixed  and  precise  conceptions.  She  again 
inclines  him  to  them  indirectly  through  the  order 
of  political  association  to  which  she  leads  and  re- 
strains him. 

Greece,  indeed,  is  a  small  country  compared  with 
its  fame,  and  it  will  seem  to  you  still  smaller  if  you 
observe  how  divided  it  is.  The  principal  chains  on 
one  side  of  the  sea  and  the  lateral  chains  on  the 
other  separate  a  number  of  distinct  provinces  form- 


ART  m  GREECE.  37 

ing  so  many  circumscribed  districts — Thessaly,  Boe- 
otia,  Argos,  Messenia,  Laconia  and  all  the  islands.  It 
is  difficult  to  traverse  the  sea  in  barbarous  ages,  while 
mountain  defiles  are  always  available  for  defense. 
The  populations  of  Greece  accordingly  could  easily 
protect  themselves  against  invasion  and  exist  along- 
side of  each  other  in  small  independent  communities. 
Homer  enumerates  thirty,*  and,  on  the  establishment 
and  multiplication  of  colonies,  these  get  to  be  several 
hundred.  To  modern  eyes  a  Greek  State  seems  in 
miniature.  Argos  is  from  eight  to  ten  miles  long 
and  four  or  five  wide ;  Laconia  is  of  about  the  same 
size ;  Achaia  is  a  narrow  strip  of  land  on  the  flank 
of  a  mountain  which  descends  to  the  sea.  The 
whole  of  Attica  does  not  equal  the  half  of  one  of  our 
departments ;  the  territories  of  Corinth,  Sicyon  and 
Megara  dwindle  to  a  town  suburb ;  generally  speak- 
ing, and  especially  in  the  islands  and  colonies,  the 
State  is  simply  a  town  with  a  beach  or  a  surround- 
ing border  of  farms.  Standing  on  one  acropolis  the 
eye  can  take  in  the  acropolis  or  mountains  of  its 
neighbor.  In  so  limited  a  circuit  the  mind  embraces 
*  Book  II.    The  Enumeration  of  warriors  and  vesBcle. 


38  THE  PEILOSOPET  OF 

all  distinctly ;  tlie  moral  patrimony  possesses  no  ele- 
ment of  the  gigantic,  abstract  or  vague  as  with  us ; 
the  senses  can  take  it  all  in ;  it  is  compounded  with 
the  physical  patrimony ;  both  are  fixed  in  the  citizen's 
mind  by  definite  formations.  In  a  mental  conception 
of  Athens,  Corinth,  Argos  or  Sparta  he  imagines 
the  configuration  of  his  valley  or  the  silhouette 
of  his  city.  The  citizens  belonging  to  it  rise  in  his 
mind  the  same  as  its  natural  features ;  the  contracted 
sphere  of  his  political  domain,  like  the  form  of  his 
natural  domain,  provides  for  him  beforehand  the  av- 
erage and  fixed  type  in  which  all  his  conceptions  are 
to  be  included.  In  this  respect  consider  their  reli- 
gion ;  they  have  no  sentiment  of  this  infinite  universe 
in  which  a  generation  of  people,  every  conditioned 
being,  however  great,  is  but  an  atom  in  time  and 
place.  Eternity  does  not  set  up  before  them  its  pyr- 
amid of  myriads  of  ages  like  a  vast  mountain  by  the 
side  of  which  a  little  life  is  simply  a  mole-hill  or 
grain  of  sand;  they  do  not  concern  themselves  as 
others  do, — the  Indians,  the  Egyptians,  the  Semites 
and  the  Germans — ^with  the  ever-renewed  circle  of 
metempsychoses,  with  the  still  and  lasting  slumber 


ART  IN  GREECE.  39 

of  the  grave ;  with  the  formless  and  bottomless  abyss 
from  which  issue  beings  like  passing  vapor ;  with  the 
one  God,  absorbing  and  terrible,  in  whom  all  forces 
of  nature  are  concentrated,  and  for  whom  heaven  and 
earth  are  simply  a  tabernacle  and  a  footstool ;  with 
that  august,  mysterious,  invisible  power  which  the 
heart's  worship  discovers  through  and  beyond  all 
things.*  Their  ideas  are  too  clear  and  constructed 
on  too  narrow  a  model.  The  universal  escapes  them, 
or,  at  least,  half  occupies  them ;  they  do  not  form  a 
God  of  it  and  much  less  a  person ;  it  remains  in  their 
religion  in  the  back-ground,  being  the  Moira^  the 
Aisa,  the  Eimarmene,  in  other  terms,  the  part  as- 
signed  to  each.  It  is  fixed ;  no  being,  whether  man 
or  god,  can  escape  the  circumstances  of  his  lot ;  fun- 
damentally, this  is  an  abstract  truth ;  if  the  Moiraj 
of  Homer  are  goddesses,  it  is  but  little  more  than  fic- 
tion ;  under  the  poetic  expression,  as  under  a  transpa-  ; 
rent  sheet  of  water,  we  see  appearing  the  indissolu-  \ 
ble  chain  of  facts  and  the  indestructible  demarcation  ; 
of  things.     Our  sciences  of  to-day  admit  these  con-   | 

♦  Tacitus:  "DeMoriMs  Germanorum."—Deorumnominibu8  appel- 
lant socretum  lllucl,  quod  sola  reverentia  vident. 


40  THE  PHILOSOPET  OF 

ceptions ;  the  Greek  idea  of  destiny  is  nothing  moi-e 
than  our  modem  idea  of  law.  Every  thing  is  deter- 
mined, which  is  what  our  formulae  assert  and  which 
has  heen  forecast  in  their  divinations. 

When  they  develope  this  idea  it  is  to  still  more 
strengthen  the  limits  imposed  on  heings.  Out  of 
the  mute  force  which  unfolds  and  assigns  destinies 
they  fashion  their  Nemesis,*  who  humbles  the  ex- 
alted and  represses  all  excesses.  One  of  the  grand 
sentences  of  the  oracle  is  "  Not  too  much."  Guard 
against  inordinate  desire,  dread  complete  prosper- 
ity, fortiiy  yourself  against  intoxication,  always 
preserve  moderation,  is  the  counsel  which  every 
poet  and  every  thinker  of  the  great  epoch  enun- 
ciates. Instinct  and  the  spontaneous  reason  have 
nowhere  been  so  lucid ;  when,  at  the  first  awakening 
of  reflection,  they  try  to  conceive  the  world  they 
form  it  in  the  image  of  their  own  mind.  It  is  a  sys- 
tem of  order,  a  Kosmos,  a  harmony,  an  admirable 
and  regular  arrangement  of  things  self-subsistent 
and  self-transforming.  At  a  later  period  the  Stoics 
compare  it  to  a  vast  city  governed  by  the  best  laws. 

*  See  Toumier's  "Nemesis  ou  la  Jalousie  des  Dieux." 


ART  m  GREECE.  41 

There  is  no  place  here  for  mystic  and  incomprehen- 
sible gods,  nor  for  destructive  and  despotic  gods. 
The  religious  vertigo  did  not  enter  into  the  sound 
and  well-balanced  minds  which  conceived  a  "wprld 
like  this.  Their  divinities  soon  become  human  be- 
ings ;  they  have  parents,  children,  a  genealogy,  a 
history,  drapery,  palaces  and  a  physical  frame  like 
ours ;  they  are  wounded  and  suffer ;  the  greatest, 
Zeus  himself,  beheld  their  advent  and  some  day  per- 
haps will  see  the  end  of  their  reign.* 

On  the  shield  of  Achilles,  which  represents  an 
army,  "  men  marched  led  by  Ares  and  Athena,  both 
in  gold,  in  golden  vestments,  tall  and  beautiful,  as  is 
proper  for  gods,  for  men  were  much  smaller." 
There  is  indeed  but  little  difference  besides  this 
between  them  and  ourselves.  Often,  m  the  Odys- 
sey, when  Ulysses  or  Telemachus  encounter  una- 
wares any  tall  or  fine-looking  personage,  they  ask  if 
he  is  a  god.  Human  divinities  of  this  stamp  do  not 
disturb  the  minds  which  conceive  them ;  Homer 
manages  them  his  own  way ;  he  is  constantly  bring- 
ing in  Athena  for  slight  offices,  such  as  indicating 

*  The  Prometheus  of  ^schylus. 


42  TEE  PHILOSOPHT  OF 

to  Ulysses  the  dwelling  of  Alcinous  and  marking  the 
spot  where  his  discus  fell.  The  theological  poet 
moves  about  in  his  divine  world  with  the  freedom 
and  serenity  of  a  playful  child.  We  see  him  there 
laughing  and  enjoying  himself;  on  exhibiting  to  us 
Ares  surprised  in  the  arms  of  Aphrodite  Apollo  in- 
dulges his  merriment  and  asks  Hermes  if  he  would 
not  like  to  be  in  Ares'  place : 

I  would  that  it  ■were  so, 

Oh  archer-king  Apollo ;  I  could  bear 
Chains  thrice  as  many  and  of  infinite  strength. 
And  all  the  gods  and  all  the  goddesses 
Might  come  to  look  upon* me ;  I  would  keep 
My  place  with  golden  Venus  at  my  side.* 

Read  the  hymn  in  which  Aphrodite  offers  herself 
to  Anchises,  and  especially  the  hymn  to  Hermes,  who, 
the  very  day  of  his  birth,  shows  himself  a  contriving, 
robbing,  mendacious  Greek,  but  with  so  much  grace 
that  the  poet's  narrative  seems  to  be  the  badinage  of 
a  sculptor.  In  the  hands  of  Aristophanes,  in  the 
"  Frogs"  and  the  "  Clouds,"  Hercules  and  Bacchus 
are  treated  with  still  greater  freedom.  All  this 
smooths  the  way  for  the  decorative  gods  of  Pompeii, 

*  The  Odyssey,  translated  by  W.  C.  Bryant. 


ART  IN  GREECE.  43 

the  pretty  and  sinister  pleasantries  of  Lucian,  and  the 
entire  Olympic  circle  of  the  agreeable  the  social  and 
the  dramatic.  Gods  so  closely  resembling  man  soon 
become  his  companions,  and  later  his  sport.  The 
clear  mind  which,  to  bring  them  within  its  reach,  de- 
prives them  of  mystery  and  infinity,  regards  them  as 
its  own  creations  and  delights  in  the  myths  of  its 
own  formation. 

Let  ns  now  glance  at  their  ordinary  life.  Here, 
again,  they  are  wanting  in  veneration.  The  Greek 
cannot  subordinate  himself,  like  the  Roman,  to  one 
grand  unity,  a  vast  conceivable  but  invisible  patri- 
mony. He  has  not  progressed  beyond  that  form  of 
association  in  which  the  State  consists  of  the  City. 
His  colonies  are  their  own  masters ;  they  receive  a 
pontiff  from  the  metropolis  and  regard  him  with  sen- 
timents of  filial  affection ;  but  there  their  dependence 
rests.  They  are  emancipated  children,  similar  to 
the  young  Athenian  who,  on  reaching  manhood,  is 
dependent  on  nobody  and  is  his  own  master ;  whilst 
the  Roman  colonies  are  only  military  posts,  similar 
to  the  young  Roman  who,  though  married,  a  magis- 
trate and  even  consul,  always  feels  on  his  shoulder 


4:4  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

the  weight  of  a  father's  hand,  a  despotic  authority 
from  which  nothing,  save  a  triple  sale  can  set  him 
free.  To  forego  self-control ;  to  submit  to  distant  ru- 
lers, never  seen  by  them ;  to  Consider  themselves  part 
of  a  vast  whole ;  to  lose  sight  of  themselves  for  a 
great  national  benefit,  is  what  the  Greeks  never  could 
do  with  any  persistency.  They  shut  themselves  up 
and  indulged  in  mutual  jealousies ;  even  when  Darius 
and  Xerxes  invaded  their  country  they  could  scarce- 
ly unite ;  Syracuse  refuses  assistance  because  she  is 
not  given  the  command;  Thebes  sides  with  the 
Medes.  When  Alexander  combines  the  Greek  forces 
to  conquer  Asia,  the  Lacedemonians  do  not  respond 
to  the  summons.  No  city  succeeds  in  forming  a 
confederation  of  the  others  under  its  lead;  Sparta, 
Athens,  Thebes,  all  in  turn  fail ;  rather  than  yield  to 
their  compatriots  the  vanquished  apply  for  money 
to  Persia  and  make  concessions  to  the  Great  King. 
Factions  in  each  city  exile  each  other,  and  the  ban- 
ished, as  in  the  Italian  Republics,  attempt  to  return 
through  violence  with  the  aid  of  the  foreigner. 
Thus  divided,  Greece  is  conquered  by  a  semi-barbar- 
ous but  disciplined  people,  the  independence  of  sep- 


ART  ly   OEEECE.  45 

arate  cities  ending  in  the  servitude  of  the  nation. 
This  downfall  is  not  accidental,  but  fatal.  The  State, 
as  the  Greeks  conceived  it,  was  too  small ;  it  was 
incapable  of  resisting  the  shock  of  heavy  external 
masses ;  it  is  an  ingenious  and  perfect  work  of  art, 
but  fragile.  Their  greatest  thinkers,  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  limit  the  city  to  a  community  of  five  or 
ten  thousand  free  men.  Athens  had  twenty  thou- 
sand, beyond  which,  according  to  them,  it  was  sim- 
ply a  mob.  They  cannot  conceive  of  the  good  or- 
ganisation of  a  larger  community.  An  acropolis 
covered  with  temples,  hallowed  by  the  bones  of  the 
heroes  who  founded  it  and  by  the  images  of  nation- 
al gods,  an  agora,  a  theatre,  a  gymnasium,  a  few 
thousands  of  temperate,  brave,  free  and  handsome 
men,  devoted  to  "philosophy  or  public  business," 
served  by  slave  cultivators  of  the  soil  and  slave  arti- 
sans, is  the  city  which  they  conceive,  an  admirable 
work  of  art,  daily  established  and  perfected  xmder 
their  own  eyes,  in  Thrace,  on  the  shores  of  the  Eux- 
ine,  of  Italy  and  of  Sicily,  outside  of  which  every 
form  of  society  seems  to  them  confusion  and  barbar- 
ism, but  whose  perfection,  nevertheless,  denotes  lit- 


46  TEE  PHILOSOPET  OF 

tleness,  and  which,  amidst  the  rude  shocks  of  human 
encounter,  lasts  only  for  a  day. 

These  drawbacks  are  accompanied  by  corre- 
sponding advantages.  If  their  religious  conceptions 
are  wanting  in  gravity  and  in  grandeur ;  if  their  po- 
litical organization  lacks  stability  and  endurance, 
they  are  exempt  from  the  moral  deformities  which 
the  greatness  of  a  religion  or  of  a  State  imposes  on 
humanity.  Civilization,  everywhere  else,  has  dis- 
turbed the  natural  equilibrium  of  the  faculties ;  it 
has  diminished  some  to  exaggerate  the  others;  it 
has  sacrificed  the  present  to  the  future  life,  man  to 
the  Divinity,  the  individual  to  the  State ;  it  has  pro- 
duced the  Indian  fakir,  the  Egyptian  and  Chinese 
functionary,  the  Roman  legist  and  official,  the  medi- 
aeval monk,  the  subject,  administr^  and  bourgeois  of 
modem  times.  Man,  under  this  pressure,  has  in 
turn  simultaneously  exalted  and  debased  himself; 
he  becomes  a  wheel  in  a  vast  machine,  or  con- 
siders himself  naught  before  the  infinite.  In  Greece 
he  subjected  his  institutions  to  himself  instead  of 
subjecting  himseK  to  them;  he  made  of  them  a 
means  and  not  an  end.     He  used  them  for  a  com- 


i 


AMT  ZZV   GREECE.  47 

plete  and  harmonious  self-development ;  he  could  be 
at  once  poet,  philosopher,  critic,  magistrate,  pontiff, 
judge,  citizen,  and  athlete ;  exercise  his  limbs,  his 
taste  and  his  intellect ;  combine  in  himself  twenty 
sorts  of  talent  without  one  impairing  the  other ;  he 
could  be  a  soldier  without  being  an  automaton,  a 
dancer  and  singer  without  becoming  a  dramatic  buf- 
foon, a  thoughtful  and  cultivated  man  without  find- 
ing himself  a  book-worm ;  he  could  decide  on  public 
matters  without  delegating  his  authority  to  others, 
honor  his  gods  -without  the  restrictions  of  dogmatic 
formulas,  without  bowing  to  the  tyranny  of  a  super- 
human might,  without  losing  himself  in  the  contem- 
plation of  a  vague  and  universal  being.  It  seems 
that,  having  designated  the  visible  and  accurate  con- 
tour of  man  and  of  life,  they  omitted  the  rest  and 
thus  expressed  themselves :  "  Behold  the  true  man, 
an  active  and  sensitive  body,  possessing  mind  and 
will,  the  true  life  of  sixty  or  seventy  years  between 
the  whining  infant  and  the  silent  tomb !  Let  us 
strive  to  render  this  body  as  agile,  strong,  healthy, 
and  beautiful  as  possible ;  to  display  this  mind  and 
will  in  every  circle  of  virile  activity ;  to  deck  this  life 


48  THE  PHlLOaOPHT   OF 

with  every  beauty  which  delicate  senses,  quick  com- 
prehension and  a  proud  and  animated  consciousness 
can  create  and  appreciate."  Beyond  this  they 
see  nothing ;  or,  if  there  is  a  "  beyond,"  it  is  for  them 
like  that  Cimmerian  land  of  which  Homer  speaks, 
the  dim  and  sunless  region  of  the  dead,  enshrouded 
with  mournful  vapors  where,  like  winged  bats,  flock 
helpless  phantoms  with  bitter  cries  to  fill  and  refresh 
their  veins  from  its  channels,  drinking  the  red  gore 
of  victims.  The  constitution  of  their  mind  limited 
their  desires  and  efforts  to  a  circumscribed  sphere, 
lit  up  in  the  full  blaze  of  sunshine,  and  to  this  arena, 
as  glowing  and  as  restricted  as  their  stadium,  we 
must  resort  to  see  them  exercise. 


ART  IN   GREEGE.  49 


lY. 

To  do  this  we  have  to  look  at  the  country  once 
more  and  draw  together  our  impression  of  the 
whole.  It  is  a  beautiful  land,  inspiring  one  with  a 
joyous  sentiment  and  tending  to  make  man  re- 
gard life  as  a  holiday.  Scarcely  more  than  its  skeleton 
exists  to-day.  Like  our  Provence,  and  still  more 
than  it,  it  has  been  shorn  and  despoiled,  scraped,  so 
to  say ;  the  ground  has  sunk  away  and  vegetation 
is  rare ;  bare,  rugged  rock,  here  and  there  spotted 
with  meagre  bushes,  absorbs  the  expanse  and  occu- 
pies three-fourths  of  the  horizon.  You  may,  never- 
theless, form  an  idea  of  what  it  was  by  following 
the  still  intact  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean  from 
Toulon  to  Hybres  and  from  Naples  to  Sorrento  and 
Amalfi,  except  that  you  must  imagine  a  bluer  sky,  a 
more  transparent  atmosphere  and  more  clearly  de- 
fined and  more  harmonious  mountain  forms.  It 
seems  as  if  there  was  no  winter  in  this  country. 
Evergreen  oaks,  the  olive,  the  orange,  the  lemon,  and 
the  cypress  form,  in  the  valleys  and  on  the  sides  of 


50  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

the  gorges,  an  eternal  summer  landscape;  they 
even  extend  down  to  the  margin  of  the  sea ;  in 
February,  at  certain  places,  oranges  drop  from  their 
stems  and  fall  into  the  water.  There  is  no  haze  and 
but  little  rain ;  the  atmosphere  is  balmy  and  the 
sun  mild  and  beneficent.  Man  here  is  not  obliged, 
as  in  our  northern  climates,  to  protect  himself 
against  inclemencies  by  complicated  contrivances, 
and  to  employ  gas,  stoves,  double,  triple  and  quad- 
ruple garments,  sidewalks,  street-sweepers  and  the 
rest  to  render  habitable  the  muddy  and  cold  sewer 
through  which,  without  his  police  and  his  energy, 
he  would  have  to  paddle.  He  has  no  need  to  invent 
spectacular  halls  and  operatic  scenery ;  he  has-  only 
to  look  around  him  and  find  that  nature  furnishes 
more  beautiful  ones  than  any  which  his  art  could 
devise.  At  Hy^res,  in  January,  I  saw  the  sun  rise 
behind  an  island ;  the  light  increased  and  filled  the 
atmosphere ;  suddenly,  at  the  top  of  a  rock,  a  flame 
burst  forth;  the  vast  crystal  sky  expanded  its 
arch  over  the  immense  watery  plain  while  the  in- 
numerable crests  of  the  waves  and  the  deep  blue 
of  the  uniform  surface  were  traversed  with  ripples 


AET  m   GREECE.  51 

of  gold ;  at  evening  the  distant  mountains  assumed 
the  delicate  hues  of  the  rose  and  the  lilac.  In  sum- 
mer this  sunny  illumination  diffiises  through  the  at- 
mosphere and  over  the  sea  such  splendor  that  the 
surcharged  senses  and  imagination  seem  to  be  car- 
ried away  in  triumph  and  glory ;  every  wave 
sparkles ;  the  water  takes  the  hues  of  precious 
stones,  turquoises,  amethysts,  sapphires,  lapis-lazuli, 
all  in  motion  and  undulating  beneath  the  universal 
and  immaculate  celestial  brightness.  It  is  in  this  in- 
undation of  luminousness  that  we  have  to  imagine 
the  coasts  of  Greece  like  so  many  marble  ewers 
and  fountains  scattered  here  and  there  through 
the  field  of  azure. 

"We  need  not  be  surprised  if  we  find  in  the  Greek 
character  that,  fund  of  gayety  and  vivacity,  that 
need  of  vital  and  conscious  energy  which  we  meet 
even  now  among  the  Proven9als,  the  Neapolitans, 
and,  generally,  in  southern  populations.*  _Man  ever 

♦  "  Theae  races  are  lively,  quiet  and  gayC  The  infirm  man  there  is 
not  cast  down;  he  calmly  awaits  the  approach  of  death;  every  thing 
Bmiles  around  him.  Here  is  the  secret  of  that  divine  complacency  of 
the  Homeric  poems  and  of  Plato ;  the  narrative  of  the  death  of  Soc- 
rates in  the  "Phsedon"  scarcely  shows  a  tinge  of  sadness.    To  live  is 


52  THE  PEIL080PET  OF 

continues  to  move  as  nature  first  directs  him,  for  the 
aptitudes  and  tendencies  which  she  firmly  implants 
in  him  are  precisely  the  aptitudes  and  tenden- 
cies which   she  daily  satisfies.     A  few  lines   from 

to  flower  and  then  to  ^ve  fruit — could  it  be  more?  If,  as  some  may 
contend,  the  pre-occnpation  with  death  is  the  distinguighinu  trait  of 
Christianity  and  of-  the  modem  religious  sentiment,  the  Greek  race 
is  the  least  religious  of  all'.  It  is  a  superficial  race,  regarding  life 
as  a  thing  void  of  the  supernatural  or  a  hereafter.  Such  simplicity  of 
conception  belongs,  in  great  part,  to  the  climate  and  to  the  purity  of  the 
atmosphere,  to  the  wonderful  joyousness  which  one  experiences  there, 
but  much  more  to  the  instincts  of  the  Hellenic  race  so  adorably  idealis- 
tic. Any  trifle— a  tree,  a  flower,  a  Uzzard,  or  a  tortoise — brings  to  mind 
thousands  of  metamorphoses,  sung  by  the  poets ;  a  stream  of  water,  a 
little  crevice  in  a  rock  are  designated  as  the  abode  of  nymphs ;  a  well 
with  a  cup  on  its  margin,  an  inlet  of  the  sea  so  narrow  that  the  butter- 
flies cross  it  and  yet  navigable  for  the  largest  vessels  as  at  Paros ;  orange 
and  cypress  trees  extending  their  shadows  over  the  water,  a  small  pine 
grove  amid  the  rocks  suffice,  in  Greece,  to  produce  that  contentment 
which  awakens  beauty.  To  stroll  in  the  gardens  at  night  listening  to  the 
cicada,  and  to  sit  in  the  moonlight  playing  the  flute;  to  go  and  imbibe 
water  from  the  mountain  source,  with  a  piece  of  bread,  a  fish  and  a  flask 
of  wine  to  be  drank  while  singing ;  to  suspend,  at  family  festivals,  a 
crown  of  leaves  over  the  portal,  and  to  go  with  chaplets  of  flowers ;  to 
carry  to  public  festivities  a  thyrsus  decked  with  verdure ;  to  pass  whole 
days  in  dancing  and  to  play  with  tame  goats,  are  Greek  enjoyments — the 
enjoyments  of  a  poor,  economical,  eternally  youthful  race,  inhabiting  a 
charming  country,  finding  its  well-being  in  itself  and  in  the  gifts  which 
the  gods  have  bestowed  upon  it.  The  pastoral  model  of  Theocritus  was 
a  truth  in  Hellenic  countries ;  Greece  always  delighted  in  this  minor 
kind  of  refined  and  pleasing  poetry,  one  of  the  most  characteristic  of 
its  literature,  a  mirror  of  its  own  life  almost  everywhere  else  silly  and  af- 
fected.   The  pleasure  of  living  and  sprightliness  of  humor  are  pre-emi- 


ART  m   GREECE.  53 

Aristophanes  will  portray  to  you  this  frank,  spright- 
ly and  radiant  sensuousness.  Some  Athenian  peas- 
ants are  celebrating  the  return  of  peace. 

"  I  am  delighted !  I  am  delighted  at  being  lid 
of  helmet,  and  cheese,  and  onions ;  for  I  find  no 
pleasure  in  battles,  but  to  continue  drinking  beside 
the  fire  with  my  dear  companions,  having  kindled 
whatever  is  the  driest  of  firewood  which  has  been 
sawn  up  in  summer,  and  roasting  some  chick-peas, 
and  putting  on  the  fire  the  esculent  acorn,  and  at 
the  same  time  kissing  my  Thracian  maid  while  my 
wife  is  washing  herself.     For  there  is  not  any  thing 

nently  Grecian  traits.  The  foliage  of  youth  was  always  peculiar  to  that 
race ;  for  it  indidgere  genio  is  not  the  stolid  intoxication  of  the  English 
nor  the  vulgar  pastime  of  the  French ;  it  is  rather  simply  to  think  that 
nature  is  gracious  and  that  one  may  and  ought  to  yield  to  her.  To  the 
Greek,  in  fine,  nature  is  the  suggestor  of  elegance,  a  mistress  of  recti- 
tude and  virtue.  '  Concupiscence,'  the  idea  that  nature  incites  us  to  do 
evil,  has  no  meaning  for  him.  The  taste  for  ornamentation  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  Greek  palikary  and  shows  itself  so  innocently  in  the  Greek 
maiden,  is  not  the  pompous  vanity  of  the  city  damsel  inflated  with  the 
ridiculous  conceit  of  a  parvenue ;  it  is  the  pure  and  simple  sentiment  of 
unaflfbcted  youth  conscious  of  being  the  legitimate  ofi'spring  of  the  true 
parents  of  beauty."  ["Saint  Paul,"  by  E.  Renan,p.  202.]  Afriendwho 
has  ti-avelled  some  time  in  Greece  tells  me  that  the  horse-drivers  and 
guides  will  often  pluck  some  attractive  shrub  and  carry  it  carefully  in 
their  hand  during  the  day,  put  it  safely  by  in  the  evening  on  going  to 
bed,  and  resume  it  in  the  morning  for  farther  pleasure  in  it. 


54  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

more   agreeable  than  for   the   seed  to  be  already 
sown,  and  the  god  to  rain  upon  it,  and  some  neigh- 
bor to  say :   '  Tell  me,  O  Comarchides,  what  shall 
we  do  at  this  time  of  day  ?'     I've  a  mind  to  drink, 
since  the  god  acts  so  favorably.     Come,  wife,  wash 
three  chenixes  of  kidney-beans  and  mix  some  wheat 
with  them,  and  bring  out  some  figs,  for  it  is  in  no 
wise  possible  to  strip  ofiE"  the  vine  leaves  to-day,  or 
to  grub  round  the  roots,  since  the  ground  is  so  wet. 
And  let  some  one  bring  forth  from  my  house  the 
thrush  and  the  two  finches.     And  there  were  also 
within  some  beestings  and  four  pieces  of  hare.  *  *  * 
Bring  in  three   pieces,  boy,  and  give   one  to  my 
father,  and  beg   some  fruit-bearing  myrtles  from 
JEschineades,  and  at  the  same  time  let  some  one 
call  on  Charniades  that  he  may  drink  with  us,  since 
the  god  benefits  and  aids  our  crops.    *    *    *    Most 
.august  goddess  queen,  venerable  Peace,  mistress  of 
choral  dancesj  mistress  of  nuptials,  receive  our  sacri- 
fice!  *  *   *    Grant  that  our  market  be  filled  with 
multifarious  good  things ;  with  garlic,  early  cucum- 
bers, apples  and  pomegranates ;  *  *  *  and  that  we 
may  see  people  bringing  from  the  Boeotians  geese. 


ART  IN   OBEEGE.  55 

ducks,  wood-pigeons  and  sand-pipers,  and  that  bas- 
kets of  Copaic  eels  come,  and  that  we,  collected 
in  crowds  around  them,  buying  fish,  may  jostle 
with  Morychus  and  Teleas  and  other  gourmands. 
*  *  *  Come  quick,  Dicseopolis,  for  the  priest  of 
Bacchus  sends  for  you.  Make  haste,  all  things  are 
in  readiness — couches,  tables,  cushions  for  the  head, 
chaplets,  ointments,  sweetmeats ;  the  courtesans  are 
there,  cakes  of  fine  flour,  honey-cakes,  lovely  danc- 
ing girls,  Harmodius'  delights."  {  stop  the  quota- 
tion which  becomes  too  free ;  antique  sensuality  and 
southern  sensuality  make  use  of  bold  g-estures  and 
very  precise  language. 

Such  a  cast  of  mind  leads  man  to  regard  life  as  a 
continuous  holiday.  The  most,  serious  ideas  and  insti- 
tutions in  the  hands  of  the  Greek  become  gay ;  his 
divinities  are  "  the  happy  gods  that  never  die."  They 
dwell  on  the  summits  of  Olympus,  "  which  the  winds 
do  not  shake ;  which  are  never  wet  by  rain  or  visited 
by  snow ;  where  the  cloudless  ether  is  disclosed  and 
where  the  bright  light  nimbly  dances."  Here  in  a 
glittering  palace,  seated  on  golden  thrones,  they 
drink  nectar  and    eat  ambrosia  while  the  muses 


66  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

"  sing  with  their  beautiful  voices."  Heaven  to  the 
Greek,  is  eternal  festivity  in  broad  daylight,  and 
co'nsequently  the  most  beautiful  life  is  that  which 
most  resembles  the  life  of  the  gods.  With  Homer 
the  happy  man  is  he  who  can  "  revel  in  the  bloom  of 
his  youth  and  reach  the  thi-eshold  of  old  age."  Re- 
ligious ceremonies  are  joyous  banquets  at  which  the 
gods  are  content  because  they  obtain  their  share  of 
wine  and  meat.  The  most  imposing  festivals  are 
operatic  representations.  Tragedy,  comedy,  dancing, 
choruses  and  gymnastic  games  form  a  part  of  their 
worship.  In  honoring  the  gods  it  never  occurs  to 
them  that  it  is  necessary  to  fast,  mortify  the  flesh, 
pray  in  fear  and  trembling,  and  prostrate  one's  self  de- 
ploring one's  sins ;  but  on  the  contrary,  to  take  part 
in  their  enjoyments,  to  display  before  them  the  most 
beautiful  nude  forms,  to  deck  the  city  in  their  behalf, 
and,  abstracting  man  for  a  moment  from  his  mortal 
condition,  elevate  him  to  theirs  by  every  magnifi- 
cence which  art  and  poesy  can  furnish.  This  "  en- 
thusiasm" to  them  is  piety ;  and,  after  giving  vent  in 
tragedy  to  their  grand  and  solemn  emotions,  they 
again  seek  in  comedy  an  outlet  for  their  extravagant 


ART  IN  GREECE  57 

buffooneries  and  their  voluptuous  license.  One  must 
have  read  Aristophanes'  "  Lysistrata"  and  "  Thesmo- 
phoriazusae"  to  imagine  these  transports  of  animal 
life,  to  comprehend  a  public  celebration  of  the  Dio- 
nysia  and  the  dramatic  dance  of  the  cordax,  to  com- 
prehend that,  at  Corinth,  a  thousand  courtesans  per- 
formed the  service  of  the  temple  of  Aphrodite,  and 
that  religion  consecrated  all  the  scandal  and  infatu- 
ation of  a  kermess  and  a  carnival. 

The  Greeks  partook  of  social  life  as  thoughtless- 
ly as  the  religious  life.  The  conquest  of  the  Roman 
is  for  acquisition ;  he  utilizes  vanquished  nations  as 
he  would  so  many  farms,  methodically  and  continu- 
ously, with  the  spirit  of  an  administrator  and  busi- 
ness man ;  the  Athenian  explores  the  sea,  disembarks 
and  fights  without  establishing  any  thing,  at  irregu- 
lar times,  according  to  the  impulse  of  the  hour,  the 
necessity  of  action  and  to  gratify  a  freak  of  the  im- 
agination ;  through  a  spirit  of  enterprise,  a  love  of 
glory  and  for  the  satisfaction  of  being  first  among 
the  Greeks.  The  people,  with  the  funds  of  their  al- 
lies, adorn  their  city  and,  commanding  their  artists 
to  produce  temples,  theatres,  statues,  decorations 
3* 


58  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

and  processions,  avail  themselves  daily,  and  in 
every  sense,  of  the  public  wealth.  Aristophanes 
amuses  them  with  caricatures  of  their  magistrates 
and  politicians.  The  theatres  are  open  free  of  ex- 
pense; at  the  end  of  the  Dionysia  the  money  on 
hand  in  the  treasury,  contributed  by  theu-  allies,  is 
distributed.  They  soon  demand  pay  for  their  ser- 
vices as  dicasts  and  in  the  public  assemblies.  Every 
thing  is  for  the  people.  They  oblige  the  rich  to  de- 
fray the  expense  of  choruses,  actors,  the  representa- 
tions and  all  the  finest  spectacles.  However  poor 
they  may  be,  they  have  baths  and  gymnasia,  sup- 
ported by  the  treasury,  as  pleasant  as  those  of  the 
knights.*  Towards  the  last  they  give  themselves  no 
further  care ;  they  hire  mercenaries  to  carry  on  their 
wars ;  if  they  concern  themselves  with  politics,  it  is 
simply  for  discussion ;  they  listen  to  their  orators  as 
dilettanti  and  attend  to  their  debates,  recriminations 
and  eloquent  assaults  as  they  would  a  performance 
in  a  cock-pit.  They  sit  in  judgment  upon  talent  and 
applaud  judiciously.  The  main  thing  with  them  is 
to  ensure  perfect  festivals ;  they  decree  the  penalty 
*  Xenophoa :  "  The  Athenian  Eepahlic." 


ART  IN  GBEEGE.  59 

of  death  against  whosoever  shall  propose  to  divert 
any  portion  of  the  money  set  aside  for  them  to  war 
purposes.  Their  generals  bear  witness  to  this: 
"  Except  one  alone  whom  you  send  to  battle,"  says 
Demosthenes,  "  the  others  follow  the  sacrifices  in  the 
adornment  of  your  festivals."  In  the  equipment  and 
despatch  of  a  fleet  they  do  not  act,  or  else  act  too 
late;  while,  on  the  contrary,  for  processions  and 
public  performances,  every  thing  is  foreseen,  arranged, 
and  exactly  fulfilled  as  it  ought  to  be  and  at  the  ap- 
pointed hour.  Little  by  little,  under  the  dominion 
of  primitive  sensuality,  the  State  becomes  reduced  to 
a  spectacular  enterprise,  whose  business  it  is  to  pro- 
vide poetic  enjoyment  for  people  of  taste. 

Likewise,  finally,  in  philosophy  and  in  science, 
they  aimed  only  to  cull  the  flower  of  things ;  they 
possessed  none  of  the  abnegation  of  the  modern  sa- 
vant, who  devotes  his  genius  to  the  elucidation  of  an 
obscure  point ;  who  gives  up  years  of  observation  to 
some  species  of  animal ;  who  incessantly  multiplies 
and  verifies  his  experiments ;  who,  abandoning  him- 
self voluntarily  to  thankless  labor,  passes  his  life  in 
patiently  hewing  two  or  three  stones  for  an  immense 


60  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

edifice  which  he  cannot  see  completed,  but  which  is 
to  be  of  vast  service  to  generations  to  come.  Phi- 
losophy, here,  is  talk ;  it  is  born  in  the  gymnasia,  un- 
der porticoes,  and  in  groves  of  sycamore ;  the  master 
converses  as  he  walks,  and  his  pupils  follow  him. 
All,  at  the  outset,  rush  on  to  lofty  conclusions ;  to 
generalize  is  their  pleasure ;  they  delight  in  it  and 
care  but  little  for  constructing  a  good,  solid  founda- 
tion ;  their  proofs  dwindle  down  most  frequently  to 
the  mere  resemblance  of  truths.  They  are,  in  short, 
speculators,  fond  of  flying  over  the  summit  of  things, 
of  traversing  in  three  paces,  like  Homer's  gods,  a 
vast  new  realm,  of  embracing  the  entire  universe  in 
a  single  glance.  A  system  is  a  sort  of  sublime  opera, 
the  opera  of  comprehensive  and  inquisitive  minds. 
Their  philosophy,  from  Thales  to  Proclus,  has,  like 
their  tragedy,  entwined  itself  around  thirty  or  forty 
principal  themes,  and  with  a  multitude  of  varia- 
tions, amplification  and  admixtures.  The  philo- 
sophic imagination  manipulated  ideas  and  hypothe- 
ses, just  as  the  mythologic  imagination  manipulated 
legend  and  divinity. 

Passing  from  their  works  to  their  methods  we  see 


ART  IN   GREECE,  61 

the  same  intellectual  efforts.  They  are  as  much 
sophisfs  as  they  are  philosophers ;  they  exercise  the 
mind  for  the  mind's  sake.  A  subtle  distinction,  a 
long  and  refined  analysis,  a  captious  argument  of 
difficult  elaboration,  attracts  and  absorbs  them. 
They  amuse  themselves  with  and  linger  over  dialec- 
tics, quibbles  and  paradoxes;*  they  are  not  sufii- 
ciently  in  earnest ;  if  they  undertake  any  research 
it  is  not  with  a  view  to  obtain  a  fixed  and  definite 
acquisition ;  they  do  not  love  truth  wholly  and  ab- 
solutely, forgetful  of  and  indifferent  to  the  rest.  She 
is  game  which  they  often  run  down,  but,  to  see  their 
reasoning,  we  soon  recognize  that,  without  acknowl- 
edging it  to  themselves,  they  prefer  the  chase,  the 
chase  with  its  manoeuvi-ings,  its  artifices,  its  cir- 
cuits, its  inspiration  and  that  sentiment  of  free  dis- 
cursive and  victorious  action  with  which  it  stimulates 
the   nerves   and   imagination  of  the   hunter.      "  O 

*  See  logical  methods  in  Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  especially  the 
proofs  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  in  the  "Phajdon."  In  all  this 
philosophy  the  faculties  are  superior  to  the  work  in  hand.  Aristotle 
wrote  a  treatise  on  Homeric  problems  following  the  example  of  the 
rhetoricians  who  sought  to  ascertain  whether,  when  Aphrodite  was 
wounded  by  Diomed,  the  wound  was  in  the  right  hand  or  in  the  left. 


62  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

Greeks !  Greeks !"  said  an  Egyptian  priest  to  Solon, 
"what  children  ye  are!"  They  played,  in  fact, 
with  life,  and  all  life's  gravest  things,  with  religion 
and  the  gods,  with  government  and  law,  with  phi- 
losophy and  truth. 


ABT  m  GREECE.  63 


Y. 

Hence  their  position  as  the  greatest  artists  of  the 
world.  They  possessed  the  charming  freedom  of 
mind,  the  superabundance  of  inventive  gayety,  the 
gracious  intoxication  of  invention  which  leads  the 
child  to  constantly  form  and  arrange  little  poems 
with  no  object  but  that  of  giving  full  play  to  new 
and  over  lively  faculties  suddenly  awakened.  The 
three  leading  traits  that  we  have  distinguished  in 
their  character  are  just  those  which  constitute  the 
artistic  soul  and  intellect.  Delicacy  of  perception, 
an  aptitude  at  seizing  nice  relationships,  the  sense 
of  gradation,  is  what  allows  the  artist  to  construct 
a  totality  of  forms,  colors,  sounds  and  incidents,  in 
short,  elements  and  details,  so  closely  united  among 
themselves  by  inward  dependencies,  that  their  or- 
ganization constitutes  a  living  thing,  surpassing  in 
the  imaginary  world  the  profound  harmony  of  the 
actual  world.  The  necessity  of  clearness,  a  feeling 
for  proportion,  dislike  of  the  vague  and  the  ab- 
stract, contempt  for  the  monstrous  and  exaggerated, 


64  THE  PHILOSOPET  OF 

and  a  taste  for  accurate  and  defined  contours,  is 
what  leads  him  to  give  his  conceptions  a  shape  which 
the  imagination  and  senses  can  easily  grasp,  and, 
consequently,  to  execute  works  comprehensible  to 
every  race  and  all  ages,  and  which,  being  human,  are 
eternal-  The  love  and  worship  of  this  life,  the  sen- 
timent of  human  energy  and  the  necessity  of  calm- 
ness and  gayety,  is  what  leads  him  to  avoid  depicting 
physical  infirmity  and  moral  ills,  to  represent  the 
health  of  the  spirit  and  perfection  of  the  body,  and 
to  complete  the  acquired  beauty  of  expression  by 
the  fundamental  beauty  of  the  subject.  These  are 
the  distinct  traits  of  their  entire  art.  A  glance  at 
their  literature  compared  with  that  of  the  Orient, 
of  the  middle  ages  and  of  modern  times ;  a  perusal 
of  Homer  compared  with  that  of  the  Divine  Com- 
edy, of  Faust  or  of  the  Indian  epics ;  a  study  of  their 
prose  compared  with  the  prose  of  every  other  age 
and  country,  will  soon  furnish  convincing  proof  of  it. 
Every  literary  style  relatively  to  theirs  is  pompous, 
heavy,  forced  and  obscure ;  every  moral  type  rela- 
tively to  theirs  is  overstrained,  mournful  and  mor- 
bid ;  every  oratorical  and  poetic  model,  eveiy  model 


ABT  IN   QBEEGE.  65 

in  fact  which  has  not  been  borrowed  from  them,  is 
disproportioned,  distorted  and  badly  put  together 
by  the  work  which  it  contains. 

Our  space  is  limited,  and  among  a  hundred  ex- 
amples we  can  choose  but  one.  Let  us  take  an  ob- 
ject exposed  to  the  eye,  and  that  which  first  attracts 
attention  on  entering  the  city.  I  refer  to  the  temple. 
It  stands  usually*  on  a  height  called  the  Acropolis, 
on  a  substructure  of  rocks,  as  at  Syracuse,  or  on  a 
small  eminence  which,  as  at  Athens,  was  the  first 
place  of  refuge  and  the  original  site  of  the  city.  It 
is  visible  from  every  point  on  the  plain  and  from  the 
neighboring  hills ;  vessels  greet  it  at  a  distance  on 
approaching  the  port.  It  stands  out  in  clear  and 
bold  relief  in  the  limpid  atmosphere.*  It  is  not, 
like  our  mediaeval  cathedrals,  crowded  and  smoth- 
ered by  rows  of  houses,  secreted,  half-concealed,  in- 
accessible to  the  eye  save  in  its  details  and  its  up- 
per section.  Its  base,  sides,  entire  mass  and  full 
proportions  appear  at  a  glance.  You  are  not 
obliged  to  divine  the  whole  from  a  part ;  its  situa- 

*  See  the  restorations,  accompanied  witli  memoirs,  fey  Tetaz,  Pac- 
card  Boitte  and  Gamier. 
5 


66  TEE'  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

tion  renders  it  proportionate  to  man's  senses.  In 
order  that  there  may  be  no  lack  of  distinctness  of 
impression,  they  give  it  medium  or  small  dimensions. 
There  are  only  two  or  three  of  the  Grecian  temples 
as  large  as  the  Madeleine.  They  bear  no  resem- 
blance to  the  vast  monuments  of  India,  Babylon  and 
Egypt,  the  storied  and  crowded  palaces,  the  mazes 
of  avenues,  enclosures,  halls  and  colossi,  so  numer- 
ous that  the  mind  at  last  becomes  disturbed  and  be- 
wildered. They  do  not  resemble  the  gigantic  cathe- 
drals whose  naves  contain  the  entire  population  of  a 
city ;  which  the  eye,  even  if  they  were  placed  on  a 
height,  could  not  wholly  embrace;  whose  profiles 
are  lost  and  the  total  harmony  of  which  cannot  be 
appreciated  except  on  a  perspective  plan.  The 
Greek  temple  is  not  a  place  of  assembly  but  the 
special  habitation  of  a  god,  a  shrine  for  his  effigy,  a 
marble  monstrance  enclosing  an  unique  statue.  At 
a  hundred  paces  qIF  from  the  sacred  precincts  you 
can  seize  the  direction  and  harmony  of  the  principal 
lines.  They  are,  moreover,  so  simple  that  a  glance 
suffices  to  comprehend  the  whole.  This  edifice  has 
nothing  complicated,  quaint  or  elaborate  about  it ; 


AMT  m   QBEECE.  -  6T 

it  is  a  rectangle  bordered  by  a  peristyle  of  columns ; 
three  or  four  of  the  elementary  forms  of  geometry 
suffice  for  the  whole,  the  symmetry  of  their  ar- 
rangement setting  them  forth  through  their  repeti- 
tions and  contrasts.  The  crowning  of  the  pediment, 
the  fluting  of  the  pillars,  the  abacus  of  the  capital, 
all  the  accessories  and  all  details  contribute  yet 
more  to  show  in  stronger  relief  the  special  character 
of  each  member,  while  the  diversity  of  polychi'omy 
serves  to  mark  and  define  their  respective  values. 

You  have  recognized  in  these  difierent  character- 
istics the  fundamental  need  of  pure  and  fixed  forms. 
A  series  of  other  characters  shows  the  subtlety  of 
their  tact  and  the  exquisite  delicacy  of  their  percep- 
tions. There  is  a  close  tie  between  all  the  forms 
and  dimensions  of  a  temple  as  there  is  between  all 
the  organs  of  a  living  organism,  and  this  tie  they 
discovered ;  they  established  the  architectural  module 
which  according  to  the  diameter  of  a  column,  deter- 
mines its  height,  next  its  shape,  next  its  base  and 
capital,  and  next  the  distance  between  the  columns 
and  the  general  economy  of  the  edifice.  They  in- 
tentionally modified  the  clumsy  strictness  of  math- 


68  .       TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

ematical  forms-;  they  adapted  tliem  to  the  secret 
exigencies  of  the  eye ;  they  gave  a  swell  to  the  col- 
umn by  a  skilful  curve  two-thirds  its  height ;  they 
gave  convexity  to  all  the  horizontal,  and  inclined  to 
the  centre  all  the  vertical  lines  of  the  Parthenon ; 
they  discarded  all  the  fetters  of  mechanical  sym- 
metry ;  they  gave  unequal  "wings  to  their  Propylaea 
and  different  levels  to  the  two  sanctuaries  of  their 
Ereotheum;  they  intersected,  varied  and  inflected 
their  plans  and  angles  in  such  a  manner  as  to  endow 
architectural  geometry  with  the  grace,  the  diversity, 
the  unforeseen,  the  fleeting  suppleness  of  a  living 
thing,  without  diminishing  the  effect  of  the  masses ; 
and  they  decked  its  surface  with  the  most-  elegant 
series  of  painted  and  sculptured  ornaments.  Nothing 
in  all  this  equals  the  originality  of  their  taste  un- 
less it  be  its  correctness ;  they  combined  two  quali- 
ties apparently  excluding  each  other,  extreme  rich- 
ness and  extreme  gravity.  Our  modem  perceptions 
do  not  reach  this  point ;  we  only  half  succeed,  and 
by  degrees,  in  divining  the  perfection  of  their  inven- 
tion. The  exhuming  of  Pompeii  was  necessary  to 
enable  us  to  conjecture  the  charming  vivacity  and 


ART  IN   OBEECE.  60 

harmony  of  decoration  with  which  they  clothed 
their  walls ;  and  in  our  own  day,  an  English  archi- 
itect  has  measured  the  imperceptible  inflexion  of  the 
swollen  horizontal  lines  and  the  convergent  perpen- 
dicular lines  which  give  to  their- most  beautiful  tem- 
ple its  supreme  beauty.  We,  in  their  presence,  are 
like  an  ordinary  listener  to  a  musician  born  and 
brought  up  to  music ;  there  are  in  his  performance 
delicacies  of  execution,  purity  of  tone,  fulness  of 
chords  and  •achievements  of  expression  which  the 
listener,  partially  endowed  and  badly  prepared  for 
it,  only  seizes  in  gross  and  from  time  to  time.  We 
retain  only  the  total  impression,  and  this  impres- 
sion, conformable  to  the  genius  of  the  race,  is  that 
of  a  gay  and  invigorating  f^te.  The  architectural 
structure  is  of  itself  healthy  and  viable ;  it  does  not 
require,  like  the  Gothic  cathedral,  a  colony  of  masons 
at  its  feet  to  keep  restoring  its  constant  decay ;  it 
does  not  borrow  support  for  its  arches  from  out- 
ward buttresses ;  it  needs  no  iron  frame  to  sustain  a 
prodigious  scaffolding  of  fretted  and  elaborated  pin- 
nacles, to  fasten  to  its  walls  its  marvellously  intricate 
lacework  and  its  fragile  stone  filagree.    It  is  not  the 


70  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

product  of  an  exalted  imagination  but  of  a  lucid 
reason.  It  is  so  made  as  to  endure  by  itself  and 
without  help.  Almost  every  temple  in  Greece, 
would  be  still  intact  if  the  brutality  or  fanaticism  of 
man  had  not  supervened  to  destroy  them.  Those 
of  Paestum  remain  erect  after  twenty-three  centu- 
ries ;  it  is  the  explosion  of  a  powder  magazine  which 
cut  the  Parthenon  in  two.  Left  to  itself  the  Greek 
temple  stands  and  continues  to  stand;  we  realize 
this  in  its  great  solidity ;  its  mass  is  consolidated  in- 
stead of  being  weighed  down.  We  are  sensible  of 
the  stable  equilibrium  of  its  diverse  members ;  for 
the  architect  reveals  the  inner  through  the  outer 
structure,  the  lines  which  flatter  the  eye  with  their 
harmonious  proportions  being  just  the  lines  which 
satisfy  the  understanding  with  assurances  of  eter- 
nity.* Add  to  this  appearance  of  power  an  air  of 
ease  and  elegance ;  mere  endurance  is  not  the  aim 
of  the  Greek  edifice  as  with  the  Egyptian  edifice. 
It  is  not  crushed  down  by  a  weight  of  matter  like 
our  obstinate  and  ungainly  Atlas;   it  unfolds,  ex- 

*  In  this  connection  the  reader  is  referred  to  '■'•  La  PhUosophie  de 
V architecture  en  Orece"  by  M.  E.  Boutmy,  a  work  of  a  very  accurate  and 
delicate  spirit. 


ART  IN  GREECE.  .  71 

pauds,  and  rises  up  like  the  beautiful  figure  of  an 
athlete  in  whom  vigor  accords  with  delicacy  and  re- 
pose. Consider  again  its  adornment,  the  golden 
bucklers  starring  its  architrave,  its  golden  acro- 
teria,  the  lions'  heads  gleaming  in  sunshine,  the 
threads  of  gold  and  sometimes  of  enamel  which  en- 
twine the  capitals,  the  covering  of  vermilion  min- 
ium, blue,  light  ochre  and  green,  every  bright  or 
quiet  tone,  which,  united  and  opposed  as  at  Pom- 
peii, affords  the  eye  a  sensation  of  healthy  and 
hearty  southern  joyousness.  Finally,  take  into  ac- 
count the  bas-reliefs,  the  statues  of  the  pediments, 
metopes  and  frise,  especially  the  colossal  effigy  of 
the  inner  cell,  the  sculptures  of  ivory,  marble  and 
gold,  those  heroic  or  divine  bodies  which  place  be- 
fore men's  eyes  perfect  images  of  manly  force,  of 
athletic  perfection,  of  militant  virtue,  of  unaffected 
nobility,  of  unalterable  serenity  and  you  will  arrive 
at  the  first  conception  of  theii  genius  and  their  art. 


THE  PEEIOD. 


AST  m   GREECE.  Y5 


THE  PEEIOD. 

We  have  now  to  take  another  step  and  consider 
a  new  characteristic  of  Greek  civilization.  The 
Greek  of  ancient  Greece  is  not  only  Greek  but  again 
he  is  antique ;  he  does  not  differ  from  the  English- 
man or  Spaniard,  because,  being  of  another  race,  he 
has  other  aptitudes  and  inclinations  ;  he  differs  from 
the  Englishman,  the  Spaniard  and  the  modem  Greek 
in  this,  that,  placed  at  an  anterior  epoch  of  history, 
lie  entertains  other  ideas  and  other  sentiments.  He 
precedes  us.  and  we  follow  him.  He  did  not  build 
his  civilization  on  ours ;  we  built  our  civilization  on 
his,  and  on  many  others.  He  is  on  the  lower  floor 
while  we  are  on  the  second  or  third  story.  Hence 
certain  results  which  are  infinite  in  number  and  im- 
portance. What  can  differ  more  than  two  lives,  one 
on  a  level  with  the  ground  with  all  the  doors  open- 
ing on  the  country,  and  the  other  perched  aloft  and 
confined  to  the  small  compartments  of  a  modern 
dwelling-houso  ?    The  contrast  may  be  expressed  in 


76  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

two  words :  their  life,  mental  and  physical,  is  simple ; 
ours  is  complicated.  Their  art,  therefore,  is  simpler 
than  ours,  and  the  conception  they  form  of  man's 
body  and  soul  provides  material  for  works  which  our 
civilization  no  longer  warrants. 


ART  IN  QREEGE.  77 


A  glance  at  the  outward  features  of  their  life  suf- 
fices to  show  how  simple  it  is.  Civilization,  in  mi- 
grating towards  the  north,  had  to  provide  for  all 
sorts  of  wants  which  it  was  not  obliged  to  satisfy  in 
its  early  condition  at  the  south.  In  a  moist  or  cold 
climate,  like  that  of  Gaul,  Gennany,  England  and 
North  America,  man  consumes  more;  he  requires 
closer  and  more  substantial  houses,  thicker  and 
warmer  clothes,  a  greater  amount  of  fire  and  light, 
more  shelter  and  food,  more  implements  and  occupa- 
tions. He  necessarily  becomes  manufacturing,  and, 
as  his  demands  grow  with  their  gratification,  he  de- 
votes three  quarters  of  his  energy  to  the  accumula- 
tion of  comforts.  The  conveniences  he  provides  for 
himself,  however,  are  so  many  restraints  and  embar- 
rassments to  him,  the  machinery  of  his  self-gratifica- 
tion keeping  him  in  bondage.  How  many  things  are 
essential  nowadays  in  the  dress  of  an  ordinary  man  I 
How  many  more  in  the  toilette  of  a  woman  even  of 


78  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

an  average  station !  Two  or  three  wardrobes  are  not 
sufficient.  You  are  aware  that  to-day  the  women  of 
Naples  and  Athens  borrow  our  fashions.  The  ac- 
coutrement of  a  pallikare  is  as  ample  as  our  own. 
Our  northern  civilizations,  in  flowing  back  upon  the 
unprogressive  people  of  the  south,  bear  to  them  a 
foreign  costume  unnecessarily  complicated ;  we  have 
to  go  to  remote  districts,  or  descend  to  the  poorest 
class,  to  find,  as  at  Naples,  lazzaroni  clad  in  a  kilt, 
and  women,  as  in  Ai'cadia,  wearing  but  one  garment, 
in  short,  people  who  reduce  and  adapt  their  dress  to 
their  slight  climatic  exigencies.  In  ancient  Greece 
a  short  tunic,  without  sleeves,  for  the  male,  and,  for 
the  female,  a  long  tunic,  reaching  to  the  feet  and 
brought  upward  over  the  shoulders,  falling  down  to 
the  waist,  constituted  all  that  was  essential  in  their 
costume ;  add  to  this  a  large  square  mantle,  and  for 
the  woman  a  veil  when  she  went  out,  together  with 
sandals,  which  were  often  worn, — Socrates  only  put 
them  on  on  festival  occasions,  people  frequently 
going  barefoot  and  likewise  bareheaded.  All  these 
habiliments  could  be  removed  with  a  turn  of  the 
hand ;  there  is  no  restraint  upon  the  figure ;  its  forms 


ART  IN   GREECE.  79 

are  indicated  and  the  nude  is  apparent  through  their 
openings  and  in  the  movements  of  the  body.  They 
were  wholly  taken  off  in  the  gymnasia,  in  the  stadi- 
um and  in  many  of  the  religious  dances ;  "  It  is  a 
Greek  peculiarity,"  says  Pliny,  "  to  conceal  nothing," 
Dress,  with  them,  is  simply  a  loose  accessory  which 
leaves  full  play  to  the  body,  and  which  can  be  thrown 
aside  in  a  moment.  There  is  the  same  simplicity  in 
man's  second  envelop,  that  is  to  say,  his  dwelling. 
Compare  a  house  of  St.  Germain  or  Fontainebleau 
with  a  house  in  Pompeii  or  Herculaneum,  two  hand- 
some provincial  cities  which,  in  relation  to  Rome, 
stand  in  the  same  position  as  St.  Germain  or  Fon- 
tainebleau do  to  Paris ;  sum  up  all  that  composes  a 
passable  dwelling  of  the  present  time,  a  tall  struct- 
ure of  hewn  stone  two  or  three  stories  high,  glazed 
windows,  wall-paper,  hangings,  blinds,  double  and 
triple  curtains,  stoves,  chimneys,  carpets,  beds, 
chairs,  all  kinds  of  furniture,  innumerable  luxurious 
trifles  and  household  implements,  and  contemplate 
these  alongside  of  the  frail  walls  of  a  Pompeian 
house,  with  its  ten  or  twelve  closets  ranged  around 
a  small  court  in  which  bubbles  a  stream  of  water,  its 


80  THE  PHILOSOPET  OF 

delicate  painting  and  its  small  bronzes ;  it  is  a  slight 
shelter  to  sleep  under  at  night,  and  for  a  siesta  during 
the  day;  in  which  to  enjoy  the  fresh  air  and  contem- 
plate delicate  arabesques  and  beautiful  harmonies  of 
color.  The  climate  requires  nothing  more.*  White- 
washed walls  which  a  robber  could  enter  and  still 
barren  of  paintings  in  the  time  of  Pericles ;  a  bed 
with  a  few  coverings,  a  chest,  some  beautiful  paint- 
ed vases,  weapons  hung  up  and  a  lamp  of  a  primi- 
tive shape ;  a  house  of  very  small  dimensions,  some- 
times only  one  story  high,  sufficed  for  a  noble 
Athenian.  He  lived  out  of  doors,  in  the  open  air, 
under  porticoes,  in  the  Agora,  in  the  gymnasia,  while 
the  public  edifices  which  protect  him  in  public  life 
are  as  indifferently  furnished  as  his  own  home.  In- 
stead of  a  palace  like  that  of  the  Corps  Legislatif  or 
the  Houses  of  Parliament  in  London,  with  its  internal 
arrangement,  seats,  lights,  library  and  refreshment 
hall,  every  kind  of  apartment  and  service  provided 
for,  he  possesses  an  empty  space,  the  Pnyx,  and  a 
few  steps  of  stone  serving  the  speaker  as  a  tribune. 

*  See  for  the  details  of  private  life  the  "  Charicles"  of  Becker,  and 

especially  the  Excursus. 


ART  m  GREECE.  81 

We  are  now  erecting  an  opera-house,  and  we  demand 
a  spacious  front,  four  or  five  vast  pavilions,  recep- 
tion-rooms, saloons  and  passages  of  every  descrip- 
tion, a  wide  circle  for  the  attendants,  an  enormous 
stage,  a  gigantic  receptacle  overhead  for  scenery  and 
an  infinity  of  boxes  and  rooms  for  actors  and  mana- 
gers ;  we  expend  forty  millions,  and  the  house  is  to 
hold  two  thousand  spectators.  In  Greece  a  theatre 
contained  from  thirty  to  forty  thousand  spectators, 
and  cost  twenty  times  less  than  with  us ;  the  means 
are  furnished  by  nature ;  a  hillside  in  which  circular 
rows  of  benches  are  cut,  an  altar  at  the  foot,  and  in 
the  centre,  a  high  sculptured  wall  like  that  at  Orange, 
to  give  a  reverberation  to"  the  actor's  voice,  the  sun 
for  a  chandelier,  and,  for  distant  scenery,  sometimes 
the  sparkling  sea  and,  again,  groups  of  mountains 
softened  in  light.  They  obtain  magnificence  through 
economy,  their  amusements  as  well  as  public  busi- 
ness being  provided  for  with  a  degree  of  perfection 
unattainable  through  our  profuse  expenditure. 

Let  us  pass  to  moral  organizations.  A  State  of 
the  present  day  comprises  thirty  or  forty  million  men 
spread  over  a  territory  consisting  of  thousands  of 


82  THE  PEIL080PET  OF 

square  miles.  It  is  for  this  reason  more  stable  than 
an  antique  city.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  it  is 
much  more  complicated,  and  for  a  man  to  perform 
any  duty  in  it  he  must  be  a  specialist.  Public  func- 
tions consequently  are  specific  like  the  rest.  The 
mass  take  part  in  general  matters  only  from  time  to 
time  and  through  elections ;  it  lives,  or  contrives  to 
live,  in  the  provinces,  unable  to  form  any  personal  or 
precise  opinions,  reduced  to  vague  impressions  and 
blind  emotions,  compelled  to  entrust  itself  to  better 
informed  persons  whom  it  despatches  to  the  capital 
and  who  act  for  it  -in  making  war  and  peace  and  in 
imposing  taxes.  The  same  substitution  takes  place 
in  relation  to  religion,  justice,  the  army  and  the  navy. 
In  each  of  these  services  we  have  a  body  of  special 
agents;  a  long  apprenticeship  is  necessary  to  do 
duty  in  them ;  they  are  beyond  the  reach  of  a  ma- 
jority of  the  citizens.  We  have  nothing  to  do  with 
them;  we  have  delegates  who,  appointed  by  each 
other  or  chosen  by  the  State,  combat,  navigate,  judge 
or  pray  for  us.  We  cannot  do  otherwise ;  the  duty 
is  too  complicated  to  oe  performed  hap-hazard  by 
the  first  comer ;  the  priest  must  have  passed  through 


ABT  m  GREECE.  83 

a  semiuaiy,  the  magistrate  through  a  law  school,  the 
officer  through  the  preparatory  schools  of  the  bar- 
racks and  the  navy,  and  the  civil  administrator 
through  examinations  and  clerkships.  In  a  small 
State,  on  the  contrary,  like  the  Greek  city,  the  com- 
mon man  is  on  a  level  with  every  public  requirement ; 
society  is  not  divided  up  into  governed  and  govern- 
ors ;  there  is  no  retired  class,  everybody  being  an  act- 
ive citizen.  The  Athenian  decides  for  himself  on 
common  interests ;  five  or  six  thousand  citizens  lis- 
ten to  orators  and  vote  on  the  public  square ;  it  is 
the  market-place ;  people  resort  to  it  to  pass  laws 
and  decrees  as  well  as  to  sell  their  wine  and  olives ; 
the  national  territory  being  simply  a  suburb,  the 
rustic  travels  but  a  short  distance  farther  than  the 
citizen.  The  business  that  brings  him,  moreover,  is 
within  his  capacity,  for  it  is  no  more  than  parish  in- 
terests, inasmuch  as  the  city  is  merely  a  township. 
He  has  no  difficulty  in  knowing  what  course  to  pur- 
sue with  Megara  or  Corinth ;  his  personal  experience 
and  daily  impressions  are  adequate  to  this  end ;  he 
has  no  need  to  be  a  professional  politician,  versed  in 
geography,  history,  statistics  and  the  like.    In  a  §im- 


84  THE  PHILOSOPRT   OF 

ilar  manner,  he  is  priest  in  his  own  house,  and  from 
time  to  time  the  pontiff  of  his  phratry  or  tribe ;  for 
his  faith  is  a  beautiful  fairy  tale,  thQ  ceremony  he 
performs  consisting  of  a  dance  or  chant  familiar  to 
him  from  his  infancy,  and  of  a  banquet  at  which  he 
presides  in  a  certain  garment. — Again,  he  is  judge  in 
the  civil,  criminal,  and  religious  dicasterion,  an  advo- 
cate, and  obliged  to  plead  in  his  own  suit.  A  man 
of  the  South,  a  Greek,  is  naturally  of  a  vivacious  in- 
tellect and  a  fluent  and  fine  speaker ;  laws  are  not  yet 
multiplied  and  jumbled  together  in  a  code  and  in 
confusion ;  he  knows  them  in  a  mass ;  pleaders  cite 
them  to  him,  and,  moreover,  custom  allows  him  to 
consult  his  instincts,  his  common  sense,  his  feeling, 
his  passions,  to  as  great  an  extent,  at  least,  as  the 
strict  letter  and  legal  arguments. — If  he  is  rich  he  is 
an  impresario.  You  are  aware  of  their  theaitre  being 
less  complicated  than  ours,  and  that  a  Greek,  an 
Athenian,  always  has  a  taste  for  seeing  dancers,  sing- 
ers, and  actors. — Rich  or  poor  he  is  a  soldier ;  mili- 
tary art  being  still  primitive  and  the  machinery  of 
war  unknown,  the  national  militia  fonns  the  army. 
There  was  no  better  one  up  to  the  appearance  of  the 


ABT  m  GREECE.  85 

Romans.  In  order  to  organize  it  and  form  the  per- 
fect soldier,  two  conditions  are  requisite,  and  these 
two  conditions  are  provided  by  the  common  educa- 
tion, without  special  instruction,  drill,  discipline  or 
exercise  in  the  barracks.  They  require,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  each  soldier  shall  be  as  good  a  gladiator 
as  possible,  with  the  most  robust,  supple  and  agile 
body,  the  best  calculated  to  strike,  ward  off  blows 
and  run ;  the  gymnasia  suffice  for  this  purpose  ;  they 
are  the  youths'  colleges ;  Avhole  days  and  long  years 
are  devoted  to  teaching  them  wrestling,  jumping, 
running,  and  throwing  the  discus,  and,  methodical- 
ly, every  limb  and  every  muscle  is  exercised  and  for- 
tified. On  the  other  hand,  they  require  the  soldiery 
to  march,  run  and  perform  their  evolutions  in  regu- 
lar ordei;;  the  orchestra  suffices  for  this  purpose;  all 
their  national  and  religious  festivals  teach  children 
and  young  people  the  art  of  forming  and  separating 
groups ;  at  Sparta,  the  chorus  of  the  public  dance  and 
of  the  military  company*  are  arranged  on  the  same 
plan.  Thus  prepared  for  it  by  their  social  arrange- 
ments, we  can  comprehend  how  the  citizen  becomes 
*  CJwros  and  Loclios. 


86  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

a  soldier  without  an  effort  and  from  the  very  begin- 
ning.— He  gets  to  be  a  mariner  without  much  great- 
er apprenticeship.  A  ship  of  war  in  those  days  was 
only  a  coasting  vessel,  and  contained,  at  most,  two 
hundred  men,  and  never  lost  sight  of  land.  In  a  city 
with  a  port,  and  which  is  supported  by  a  maritime 
trade,  there  is  no  one  who  cannot  manoeuvre  a  ves- 
sel of  this  description,  and  who  cannot  judge  of,  or 
soon  learn,  the  signs  of  the  weather,  the  chances  of 
the  wind,  positions  and  distances,  the  technics  in  full, 
and  every  accessory,*which  our  sailors  and  marine 
officers  acquire  only  after  ten  years'  study  and  prac- 
tice. All  these  peculiarities  of  antique  life  proceed 
from  the  same  cause,  which  is  the  simplicity  of  a 
civilization  without  any  precedent ;  and  all  end  in 
the  same  effect,  which  is  the  simplicity  of  a  well-bal- 
anced mind,  no  group  of  aptitudes  and  inclinations 
being  developed  at  the  expense  of  others,  free  of 
any  exclusive  direction,  and  not  deformed  by  any 
special  function.  We  have  at  the  present  day  the 
cultivated  and  the  uncultivated  man,  the  citizen  and 
the  peasant,  the  provincial  and  the  Parisian,  besides 
as  many  distinct  species  as  there  are  classes,  profes- 


ART  IN  GREECE.  87 

sions  and  trades ;  the  individual  everywhere  penned 
up  in  compartments  of  his  own  making  and  fettered 
with  innumerable  self-assigned  necessities.  Less  ar- 
tificial, less  special,  less  remote  from  the  primitive 
condition  of  things,  the  Greek  acted  in  a  political  cir- 
cle better  proportioned  to  human  faculties,  amidst 
social  ways  more  favorable  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  animal  faculties.  Nearer  to  a  natural  life  and 
less  bound  down  by  a  superadded  civilization  he 
was  more  emphatically  man. 


88  TEE  PHILOSOPET  OF 


11. 

These  are  but  the  surroundings  and  the  exterior 
moulds  which  shape  the  individual.  Let  us  look  into 
the  individual  himself,  his  sentiments  and  his  ideas ; 
we  shall  be  yet  more  impressed  with  the  distance 
between  these  and  our  own.  Two  kinds  of  culture 
fashion  them  in  every  age  and  in  every  land,  relig- 
ious culture  and  secular  culture,  both  operating  in 
the  same  sense,  formerly  to  maintain  them  simple, 
now  to  render  them  complex.  Modern  people  are 
Christian,  and  Christianity  is  a  religion  of  second 
growth  which  opposes  natural  instinct.  We  may 
liken  it  to  a  violent  contraction  which  has  inflected  the 
primitive  attitude  of  the  himian  mind.  It  proclaims, 
in  effect,  that  the  world  is  sinful,  and  that  man  is  de- 
praved— which  certainly  is  indisputable  in  the  cen- 
tury in  which  it  was  born.  According  to  it,  man 
must  change  his  ways.  Life  here  below  is  simply  an 
exile ;  let  us  turn  our  eyes  uj)ward  to  our  celestial 


AET  m  GREECE.  89 

borne.  Our  natural  character  is  vicious  ;  let  us  stifle 
natural  desires  and  mortify  the  flesh.  The  experi- 
ence of  our  senses  and  the  knowledge  of  the  wise  are 
inadequate  and  delusive ;  let  us  accept  the  light  of 
revelation,  faith  and  divine  illumination.  Through 
penitence,  renunciation  and  meditation  let  us  devel- 
op within  ourselves  the  spiritual  man ;  let  our  life  be 
an  ardent  awaiting  of  deliverance,  a  constant  sacri- 
fice of  will,  an  undying  yearning 'for  God,  a  revery 
of  sublime  love,  occasionally  rewarded  with  ecstasy 
and  a  vision  of  the  infinite.  For  fouiteen  centuries 
the  ideal  of  this  life  was  the  anchorite  or  monk.  If 
you  would  estimate  the  power  of  such  a  conception 
and  the  grandeur  of  the  transformation  it  imposes  on 
human  faculties  and  habits,  read,  in  turn,  the  great 
Christian  poem  and  the  great  pagan  poem,  one  the 
Divine  Comedy  and  the  other  the  Odyssey  and  the 
Iliad.  Dante  has  a  vision  and  is  transported  out  of  our 
little  ephemeral  sphere  into  eternal  regions ;  he  be- 
holds its  tortures,  its  expiations  and  its  felicities ;  he 
is  affected  by  superhuman  anguish  and  horror ;  all 
that  the  infuriate  and  subtle  imagination  of  the  lover 
of  justice  and  the  executioner  can  conceive  of  he  sees, 


90  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

suffers  and  sinks  under.  He  then  ascends  into  light ; 
his  body  loses  its  gravity;  he  floats  involuntarily, 
led  by  the  smile  of  a  radiant  woman ;  he  listens  to  souls 
in  the  shape  of  voices  and  to  passing  melodies ;  he 
sees  choirs  of  angels,  a  vast  rose  of  living  brightness 
representing  the  virtues  and  the  celestial  powers ; 
sacred  utterances  and  the  dogmas  of  truth  reverber- 
ate in  ethereal  space.  At  this  fervid  height,  wh^e 
reason  melts  like  wax,  both  symbol  and  apparition, 
one  effacing  the  other,  merge  into  mystic  bewilder- 
ment, the  entire  poem,  infernal  or  divine,  being  a 
dream  which  begins  with  horrors  and  ends  in  ravish- 
ment. How  much  more  natural  and  healthy  is  the 
spectacle  which  Homer  presents !  We  have  the 
Troad,  the  isle  of  Ithaca  and  the  coasts  of  Greece ; 
still  at  the  present  day  we  follow  in  his  track ;  we  rec- 
ognize the  forms  of  mountains,  the  color  of  the  sea, 
the  jutting  fountains,  the  cypress  and  the  alders  in 
which  the  sea-birds  perched ;  he  copied  a  steadfast 
and  persistent  nature ;  with  him  throughout  we  plant 
our  feet  on  the  firm  ground  of  truth.  His  book  is  a 
historical  document ;  the  manners  and  customs  of  his 
contemporaries  were  such  as  he  describes ;  his  Olyra- 


ART  IN  GREECE.  91 

pus  itself  is  a  Greek  family.  We  are  not  obliged  to 
strain  and  exalt  ourselves  to  ascertain  if  we  possess 
the  sentiments  he  utters,  nor  to  imagine  the  world 
he  paints — the  combats,  voyages,  banquets,  public 
discourses,  and  private  conversations,  the  various 
scenes  of  real  life,  of  friendships,  of  paternal  and  con- 
jugal aflection,  the  craving  for  fame  and  action,  the 
quarrels  and  reconciliations,  the  love  of  festivals,  the 
relish  of  existence,  every  emotion  and  every  passion 
of  the  natural  man.  He  confines  himself  to  the  visi- 
ble circle  realized  by  every  generation  of  human  ex- 
perience ;  he  does  not  travel  out  of  it ;  this  world  suf- 
fices for  him ;  it  alone  is  important,  the  beyond  being 
simply  the  vague  habitation  of  dissatisfied  sj^ectres 
when  Ulysses  encounters  Achilles  in  Hades  and  con- 
gratulates him  on  being  first  among  the  dead,  the 
latter  replies : 

Noble  Ulysses,  speak  not  thus  of  death 

As  if  thou  could'st  console  me.    I  would  he    ^ 

A  laborer  on  earth  and  serve  for  hire 

Some  man  of  mean  estate  who  makes  scant  cheer, 

Bather  than  reign  o'er  all  who  have  gone  down 

To  death.    Speak  rather  of  my  noble  son ; 

Whether  or  not  he  joined  the  war  to  take 

A  place  among  the  foremost  in  the  fight. 


92  TEE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

Thus  beyond  the  grave  he  is  still  most  concerned 
with  this  present  life.     Then, 

the  soul  of  swift  -iEacides 

Over  the  meadows  thick  with  asphodel 
Departed  with  long  strides,  well-pleased  to  hear 
From  me  the  story  of  his  son's  renown.* 

Different  shades  of  the  same  sentiment  reappear 
at  every  epoch  of  Greek  civilization ;  theirs  is  the 
world  lit  up  by  sunshine ;  the  hope  and  consolation 
of  the  dying  parent  is  the  survival  in  bright  day 
of  his  son,  his  glory,  his  tomb,  and  his  patrimony. 
"  The  happiest  man  I  have  seen,"  said  Solon  to  Croe- 
sus, "  is  Tellus  of  Athens ;  for  his  country  was  flour- 
ishing in  his  day,  and  he  himself  had  sons  both 
beautiful  and  good,  and  he  lived  to  see  children  born 
to  each  of  them,  and  these  children  all  grow  up ;  and 
farther,  because  after  a  life  spent  in  what  our  people 
look  upon  as  comfort,  Ms  end  was  surpassingly  glo- 
rious. In  a  battle  between  the  Athenians  and  their 
neighbors,  near  Eleusis,  he  came  to  the  assistance  of 
his  countrymen,  routed  the  foe,  and  died  upon  the 
field  most  gallantly.     The  Athenians  gave  him  a 

*  The  Odyssey,  translated  by  W.  C.  Bryant. 


ART  m  GREECE.  93 

public  funeral  on  the  spot  where  he  fell,  and  paid 
Lim  the  highest  honors."* 

"When  philosophical  reflection  comes  to  dwell  up- 
on it  the  beyond  does  not  appear  terrible,  infinite,  dis- 
proportioned  to  this  present  life,  as  certain  as  it,  ex- 
haustless  in  torments  and  delights,  and  like  a  fright- 
ful gulf  or  an  angelic  elysium. — •"  One  of  two  things," 
said  Socrates  to  his  judges,  "  either  death  is  a  state 
of  nothingness  and  utter  unconsciousness,  or,  as  men 
say,  there  is  a  change  and  migration  of  the  soul  from 
this  world  to  another.  Now  if  you  suppose  that 
there  is  no  consciousness,  but  a  sleep  like  the  sleep 
of  him  who  is  undisturbed  even  by  the  sight  of 
dreams,  and  were  to  compare  with  this  the  other 
days  and  nights  of  his  life,  and  then  were  to  tell  us 
how  many  days  and  nights  he  had  passed  in  the 
course  of  his  life  better  and  more  pleasantly  than  this 
one,  I  think  that  any  man,  I  will  not  say  a  private 
man,  but  even  the  great  king,  will  not  find  many  such 
days  or  nights,  when  compared  with  the  others. 
Now  if  death  is  like  this,  I  say  that  to  die  is  gain ; 
for  eternity  is  then  only  a  single  night.  But  if  death 
*  Eawlinson's  Herodotus. 


94:  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

is  the  journey  to  another  place,  and  there,  as  men  say, 
all  the  dead  are,  what  good,  oh  my  friends  and  judges, 
can  be  greater  than  this  ?  If,  indeed,  when  the  pilgrim 
arrives  in  the  world  below,  he  is  delivered  from  the 
professors  of  justice  in  this  world,  and  finds  the  true 
judges  who  are  said  to  give  judgment  there,  Minos 
and  Rhadamanthus  and  -^acus  and  Triptolemus, 
and  other  sons  of  God  who  were  righteous  in  their 
own  life,  that  pilgrimage  will  be  worth  making. 
What  would  not  a  man  give  if  he  might  converse 
with  Orpheus  and  Musseus  and  Hesiod  and  Homer  ? 
Nay,  if  this  be  true,  let  me  die  again  and  again,"* 
In  both  cases,  then,  we  "  should  nourish  good  hoj)e  on 
the  subject  of  death."  Twenty  centuries  later,  Pas- 
cal, taking  up  the  same  question  and  the  same  doubt, 
could  see  for  the  incredulous  no  other  hope  but  "  the 
horrible  alternative  of  utter  annihilation  or  eternal 
misery."  A  contrast  like  this  shows  the  turmoil  which 
for  eighteen  hundred  years  has  disordered  the  human 
mind.  The  prospect  of  a  happy  or  miserable  eterni- 
ty destroyed  its  balance ;  up  to  the  close  of  the  mid- 
dle ages,  with  this  incalculable  weight  upon  it,  it  was 
*  The  Dialogues  of  Plato,  translated  by  Jowett. 


ART  Ilf  OBEECE.  95 

like  imcertain  and  disjointed  scales,  now  up  to  the 
highest  point,  now  down  to  the  lowest,  and  always 
in  extremes.  When,  toward  the  Renaissance,  man's 
oppressed  nature  recovered  itself  and  assumed  the 
ascendant, -the  old  ascetic  and  monastic  doctrine 
stood  there  to  confront  and  to  beat  it  hack,  not  only 
with  its  traditions  and  institutions,  maintained  or* 
revived,  but  again  with  the  enduring  unrest  with 
which  it  had  infected  dolorous  souls  and  over-excited 
imaginations.  This  discord  subsists  at  the  present 
day ;  there  are  in  us  and  about  us  two  moral  theories, 
two  ideas  of  nature  and  of  life,  whose  constant 
antagonism  makes  us  feel  the  harmonious  ease  of  a 
young  society  where  natural  instincts  displayed 
themselves  intact  and  loyal  under  a  religion  that 
favored  instead  of  repressed  their  outgrowth. 

If  religious  culture,  with  us,  has  grafted  incon- 
gruous sentiments  on  spontaneous  tendencies,  secular 
culture  has  confused  our  mind  with  a  maze  of  elab- 
orated and  foreign  notions.  Compare  the  first  and 
most  powerful  of  educations,  that  which  language 
gives,  in  Greece  and  among  ourselves.  Our  modern 
tongues,  Italian,  Spanish,  French,  and  English  are 


96  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

dialects,  the  shapeless  remains  of  a  beautiful  idiom 
impaired  by  a  long  decadence  and  which  impoi'ta- 
tions  and  intermixtures  have  still  further  tended  to 
change  and  obscure.  They  resemble  those  edifices 
built  with  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  temple  and  with 
other  materials  picked  up  at  random ;  the  result  of 
which  is  that,  with  Latin  stones,  mutilated  and  com- 
bined in  another  style,  along  with  pebbles  gathered 
in  the  street  and  other  rubbish,  we  have  constructed 
the  building  in  which  we  live,  once  a  gothic  castle 
and  nowadays  the  modern  mansion.  Our  mind 
dwells  in  it  because  it  has  become  domiciliated ;  but 
how  much  more  freely  did  that  of  the  Greeks  move  in 
theirs !  We  do  not  readily  comprehend  our  some- 
what generalized  terms;  they  are  not  transparent; 
they  do  not  expose  their  root,  the  evident  fact  from 
which  they  are  derived ;  words  have  to  be  explained 
to  us  which  formerly  man  understood  without  an  ef- 
fort "through  the  sole  virtue  of  analogy, — genus,  spe- 
cies, grammar,  calculus,  economy,  law,  thought,  con- 
ception, and  the  rest.  Even  in  German,  where  this 
obstacle  is  slighter,  the  conducting  thread  is  want- 
ing.    Almost  the  whole  of  our  philosophic  and  scien- 


AMT  IN   GREECE.  97 

tific  vocabulary  is  foreign ;  we  are  obliged  to  know 
Greek  and  Latin  to  make  use  of  it  properly,  and, 
most  frequently,  employ  it  badly.  Innumerable 
terms  find  their  way  out  of  this  technical  vocabulary 
into  common  conversation  and  literary  style,  and 
hence  it  is  that  we  now  speak  and  think  with  words 
cumbersome  and  difficult  to  m'knage.  We  adopt 
them  ready  made  and  conjoined,  we  repeat  them  ac- 
cording to  routine ;  we  make  use  of  them  without 
considering  their  scope  and  without  a  nice  apprecia- 
tion of  their  sense;  we  only  approximate  to  that 
which  we  would  like  to  express.  Fifteen  years  are 
necessary  for  an  author  to  learn  to  write,  not  with  ge- 
nius, for  that  is  not  to  be  acquired,  but  with  clearness, 
sequence,  propriety  and  precision.  He  finds  himself 
obliged  to  weigh  and  investigate  ten  or  twelve  thou- 
sand words  and  diverse  expressions,  to  note  their  ori- 
gin, filiation  and  relationships,  to  rebuild  on  an  orig- 
inal plan,  his  ideas  and  his  whole  intellect.  If  ho 
has  not  done  it,  and  he  wishes  to  reason  on  rights, 
duties,  the  beautiful,  the  State  or  any  other  of  man's 
important  interests,  he  gropes  about  and  stumbles ; 
he  gets  entangled  in  long,  vague  phrases,  in  sonorous 


98  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

commonplaces,  in  crabbed  and  abstract  formulas. 
Look  at  the  newspapers  and  the  speeches  of  our  pop- 
ular orators.  It  is  especially  the  case  with  workmen 
who  are  intelligent  but  who  have  had  no  classical 
education ;  they  are  not  masters  of  words  and,  con- 
sequently, of  ideas;  they  use  a  refined  language 
which  is  not  natural  to  them ;  it  is  a  perplexity  to 
them  and  consequently  confuses  their  minds;  they 
have  had  no  time  to  filter  it  drop  by  drop.  This  is  an 
enormous  disadvantage,  from  which  the  Greeks  were 
exempt.  There  was  no  break  with  them  between 
the  language  of  concrete  facts  and  that  of  abstract 
reasoning,  between  the  language  spoken  by  the  peo- 
ple and  that  of  the  learned ;  the  one  was  a  counter- 
part of  the  other ;  there  was  no  term  in  any  of  Plato's 
dialogues  which  a  youth,  leaving  his  gymnasia,  could 
not  comprehend ;  there  is  not  a  phrase  in  any  of  De- 
mosthenes'harangues  which  did  not  readily  find  a 
lodging-place  in  the  brain  of  an  Athenian  peasant  oi 
blacksmith.  Attempt  to  translate  into  Greek  one  of 
Pitt's  or  Mirabeau's  discourses,  or  an  extract  from 
Addison  or  Nicole,  and  you  will  be  obliged  to  recast 
and  transpose  the  thought ;  you  will  be  led  to  find 


ART  m  GREECE.  99 

for  the  same  thoughts  expressions  more  akin  to  facts 
and  to  concrete  experience;*  a  flood  of  light  will 
heighten  the  prominence  of  all  the  truths  and  of  all 
the  errors ;  that  which  you  were  wont  to  call  natural 
and  clear  will  seem  to  you  affected  and  semi-obscure, 
and  you  will  perceive  by  force  of  contrast  why, 
among  the  Greeks,  the  instrument  of  thought  being 
more  simple,  it  did  its  office  better  and  with  less 
effort. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  work  with  the  instru- 
ment, has  become  complicated,  and  out  of  all  pro- 
portion. Besides  Greek  ideas,  we  have  all  that  have 
accumulated  for  the  past  eighteen  centuries.  We 
have  been  overburdened,  from  the  first,  with  our  ac- 
quisitions. On  issuing  from  a  brutal  barbarism  at 
the  dawn  of  the  middle  age,  a  simple  intellect,  which 
could  scarcely  do  more  than  stammer,  had  to  be  en- 

*  I  would  refer  the  reader  to  the  writings  of  Paul-Lonis  Courier, 
who  formed  hia  style  on  the  Greek.  Compare  his  translation  of  the  first 
chapters  of  Herodotus  with  those  of  Larcher.  In  "Frangois  le  Champi," 
the  "  Maitres  Sonneurs"  and  in  the  "Mare  au  Diable,"  George  Sand  at- 
tains in  a  great  degree  to  the  simplicity,  naturalness  and  admirahle  di- 
rectness of  the  Greek  style.  The  contrast  is  singular  between  this  and 
the  modem  style  which  she  employs  when  she  speaks  in  her  own  name 
or  when  she  gives  the  conversation  of  cultivated  characters. 


100  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

cumbered  with  the  remains  of  classic  antiquity  and 
an  ancient  ecclesiastical  literature,  with  a  cavilling 
Byzantine  theology,  and  the  vast  and  subtle  Aristo- 
telian encyclopedia  rendered  still  more  obscure  and 
subtle  by  his  Arabian  commentators.  Then,  after 
the  Renaissance,  came  a  revived  antiquity  to  super- 
add its  conceptions  to  ours,  frequently  to  confuse  our 
ideas  and  wrongfully  impose  on  us  its  authority,  doc- 
trines and  examples ;  to  make  us  Latin  and  Greek  in 
mind  and  language  like  the  Italian  men  of  letters 
of  the  fifteenth  century;  to  prescribe  to  us  its 
dramatic  fonns  and  the  style  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury ;  to  suggest  to  us  its  political  maxims  and  Uto- 
pias as  in  the  time  of  Rousseau  and  during  the  Rev- 
olution. The  stream,  nevertheless,  greatly  enlai'ged, 
grew  with  the  immense  influx ;  with  the  daily  increas- 
ing volume  of  experimental  science  and  human  in- 
vention ;  with  the  separate  contributions  of  growing 
civilizations,  all  of  them  spread  over  five  or  six  grand 
territories.  Add,  after  another  century,  the  knowl- 
edge difiused  among  modern  languages  and  litera- 
tures, the  discovery  of  Oriental  and  remote  civiliza- 
tions, the  extraordinary  progress  of  history,  reviving 


ART  m   GREECE.  101 

oefore  our  eyes  the  habits  and  sentiments  of  so  many 
races  and  so  many  ages ;  the  current  has  become  a 
river  as  variegated  as  it  is  enormous ;  all  this  is  what 
a  human  mind  is  obliged  to  absorb,  and  it  demands 
the  genius,  long  life  and  patience  of  a  Goethe  to 
moderately  appreciate  it.  How  much  more  simple 
and  limpid  was  the  primitive  source  !  In  the  best 
days  of  Greece  a  youth  "  learned  to  read,  write,  and 
cipher,*  play  the  lyre,  wrestle  and  to  perfonn  all 
other  bodily  exercises."f  Education  was  reduced  to 
this  "  for  the  children  of  the  best  families."  Let  us 
add,  however,  that  in  the  house  of  the  music-master 
he  was  taught  how  to  sing  a  few  national  and  relig- 
ious odes,  how  to  repeat  passages  from  Homer,  He- 
siod  and  the  lyric  poets,  the  psean  to  be  sung  in  war 
and  the  song  of  Harmodius  to  be  recited  at  the  table. 
When  he  got  to  be  older  he  listened  in  the  Agora  to 
the  discourses  of  orators,  to  the  decrees  and  the  pro- 
mulgation of  the  laws.  In  the  time  of  Socrates,  if 
inquisitive,  he  attended  the  disputes  and  dissertations 
of  the  sophists ;  he  tried  to  procure  a  book  by  Anax- 

*  Grammata.  As  letters  served  as  ciphers,  tMs  term  includes  all  three, 
t  The  "  Thcages"  of  Plato. 


102  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

agoras,  or  by  Zeno  of  Elea ;  a  few  interested  them- 
eelves  in  geometrical  problems ;  but,  as  a  whole,  ed- 
ucation was  entirely  gymnastic  and  musical,  while 
the  few  hours  that  were  devoted  to  a  philosophical 
discussion,  between  two  spells  of  bodily  exercise,  can 
no  more  be  compared  to  our  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
of  study,  than  their  twenty  or  thiity  rolls  of  j^apyrus 
manuscript  to  our  libraries  of  three  million  volumes. 
All  these  opposing  conditions  may  be  reduced  to  one, 
that  which  separates  a  fresh  and  imjjulsive  civiliza- 
tion from  an  elaborate  and  complex  civilization. 
Fewer  means  and  tools,  fewer  industrial  implements 
and  social  wheels,  fewer  words  learnt  and  ideas  ac- 
quired ;  a  smaller  heritage  and  lighter  baggage  and 
thus  more  easily  managed;  a  single,  straightfor- 
ward growth  without  moral  crisis  or  disparity,  and 
consequently  a  freer  play  of  the  faculties,  a  healthier 
conception  of  life,  a  less  disturbed,  less  jaded,  less 
deformed  spirit  and  intellect ;  this  is  the  capital  trait 
of  their  existence  and  it  will  be  found  in  their  art. 


AET  m   GREECE.  103 


III. 

The  ideal  work,  indeed,  has  ever  been  the  summa- 
ry of  real  life.  Examine  the  modern  spirit  and  you 
will  find  modifications,  inequalities,  maladies,  hyper- 
trophies, so  to  say,  of  sentiments  and  faculties  of 
which  its  art  is  the  verification. — In  the  middle  ages 
the  exaggerated  development  of  the  inner  and  spirit- 
ual man,  the  pursuit  of  tender  and  sublime  revery, 
the  worship  of  sorrow  and  the  contempt  of  the  flesh, 
lead  the  excited  feelings  and  imagination  on  to  vis- 
ions and  seraphic  adoration.  You  are  familiar  witli 
those  of  the  "Imitation"  and  the  "FJoretti"  those  of 
Dante  and  Petrarch,  and  with  the  subtle  refinements 
and  extravagant  follies  of  chivalry  and  the  courts  of 
love.  In  painting  and  sculpture,  consequently,  the 
figures  are  ugly  or  lacking  in  beauty,  often  out  of 
proportion  and  not  viable,  almost  always  meagre,  at- 
teniTfited,  wasted  and  suffering ;  overcome  and  ab- 
sorbed by  some  conception  which  turns  their  thoughts 


tot  THE  PEILOSOPET   OF 

away  from  this  nether  world ;  transfixed  in  anticipa- 
tion or  in  ravishment ;  displaying  the  meek  sadness 
of  the  cloister  or  the  radiance  of  ecstasy,  too  frail  or 
too  impassioned  to  live  and  already  belonging  to  par- 
adise.— At  the  time  of  the  Renaissance  the  universal 
amelioration  of  the  human  condition,  the  example  of 
antiquity  revived  and  understood,  the  transports  of 
the  mind  liberated  and  ennobled  by  its  grand  dis- 
coveries, renew  pagan  sentiments  and  art.  Mediae- 
val institutions  and  rites  however  still  subsist ;  in  It- 
aly as  in  Flanders,  you  see  in  the  finest  works  the 
disagreeable  incongruity  of'  figures  and  subjects ; 
there  are  martyrs  who  seem  to  have  issued  from  an 
antique  gymnasium ;  Chiists  consisting  of  destroying 
Jupiters  or  tranquil  Apollos ;  Virgins  worthy  of  pro- 
fane love ;  angels  with  the  archness  of  Cupids ;  Mag- 
dalens  often  the  most  blooming  of  sirens,  and  St.  Se- 
bastians only  so  many  hale  Hercules ;  in  short,  an  as- 
sembly of  male  and  female  saints  who,  amidst  the 
implements  of  penance  and  passion,  retain  the  vigor- 
ous health,  the  lively  carnations  and  the  spirited  at- 
titudes common  to  the  joyous  fetes  of  perfect  athletes 
•ind  noble  young  Athenian  virgins. — At  the  present 


ART  m  GREECE.  105 

day,  the  accumulations  oi  the  human  brain,  the  mul- 
tiplicity and  discord  of  doctrines,  the  excesses  of  cer- 
ebral application,  sedentary  habits,  an  artificial  re- 
gime and  the  feverish  excitement  of  capitals  have  aug- 
mented nervous  agitation,  extended  the  craving  for 
new  and  strong  sensations,  and  developed  morbid 
melancholy,  vague  aspirations  and  illimitable  lusts. 
Man  is  no  longer  what  he  was,  and  what,  perhaps, 
he  would  have  done  well  to  remain,  an  animal  of  su- 
perior grade,  happy  in  thinking  and  acting  on  the 
earth  which  nourishes  him  and  beneath  the  sun  which 
gives  him  light.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  a  prodigious 
brain,  an  infinite  spirit  of  which  his  members  are 
only  appendages  and  of  which  his  senses  are  simply 
servants;  insatiable  in  his  curiosity  and  ambition, 
ever  in  quest  and  on  conquest,  with  tremors  and  out- 
bursts which  rack  his  animal  organization  and  ruin 
his  corporeal  strength ;  led  hither  and  thither  within 
the  confines  of  the  actual  world  and  even  into  the 
depths  of  the  imaginary  world ;  now  exalted  and  now 
overwhelmed  with  the  immensity  of  his  acquisitions 
and  of  his  performances ;  raging  after  the  impossible 

or  buried  in  occupation ;  grand  and  intense  like  Beet- 
5* 


106  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

hoven,  Heine  and  tiie  Faust  of  Goethe,  or  restrained 
by  the  pressure  within  his  social  cell,  or  warped  all 
on  one  side  by  a  specialty  and  monomania  like  the 
characters  of  Balzac.  For  this  spuit  plastic  art  no 
longer  suffices ;  its  interest  in  a  figure  centres  not  in 
the  members,  the  trunk  and  the  entire  animated  frame- 
work, but  in  the  expressive  head,  the  mobile  physi- 
ognomy, the  transparent  soul  declared  in  gesture, 
passion  or  incorporeal  thought  pulsating  and  over- 
flowing through  form  and  externalities;  if  it  loves 
the  beautiful  sculptural  form  that  is  owing  to  educa- 
tion, after  long  preparatory  culture,  and  through  the 
disciplined  taste  of  the  dilettant.  Multiple  and  cos- 
mopolite as  it  is  it  finds  interest  in  all  phases  of  art, 
in  every  period  of  the  past,  in  every  grade  of  society, 
and  in  all  the  situations  of  life ;  it  can  appreciate  the 
resurrections  of  foreign  and  ancient  styles,  incidents 
of  rustic,  popular  or  barbarous  customs,  foreign  and 
remote  landscapes,  all  that  affords  aliment  for  curi- 
osity, documents  for  history  and  subjects  for  emo- 
tion or  instruction.  Satiated  and  dissipated  as  it  is 
it  demands  of  art  powerful  and  strange  sensations, 
new  effects  of  color,  physiognomy  and  site,  stimulants 


ART  IN  GREECE.  107 

which,  at  any  cost,  disturb,  provoke,  or  amuse  it,  in 
short,  a  style  which  depends  on  manner,  theory,  and 
exaggeration. 

In  Greece,  on  the  contrary,  the  sentiments  are 
simple,  and,  consequently,  taste.  Consider  Greek 
dramatic  works ;  there  are  no  profound  and  compli- 
cated characters  in  them  like  those  of  Shakspeare ; 
no  intrigue  cleverly  contrived  and  unravelled,  no 
surprises.  The  piece  turns  upon  a  heroic  legend 
with  which  people  are  familiar  from  their  infancy ; 
they  know  beforehand  its  incidents  and  catastrophe. 
The  action  can  be  described  in  a  few  words.  Ajax, 
seized  with  delirium,  massacres  the  cattle  of  the  camp, 
thinking  he  is  slaying  his  enemies ;  chagrined  at  his 
folly,  he  bewails  it  and  kills  himself.  Philoctetes, 
wounded,  is  abandoned  on  an  island  with  his  weapons ; 
he  is  sought  for  and  found  because  his  arrows  are 
needed  ;  he  becomes  exasperated,  refuses,  and,  at  the 
command  of  Hercules,  yields.  The  comedies  of  Me- 
nander,  which  we  know  through  those  of  Terence,  are 
made,  so  to  say,  out  of  nothing ;  it  takes  two  of  them 
to  make  one  Roman  piece ;  the  richest  scarcely  con- 
tains the  matter  of  one  scene  in  our  comedies.     Read 


108  THE  PHILOBOPHY  OF 

the  opening  of  the  "  Republic,"  in  Plato,  the  "  Syra- 
cuse Women"  of  Theocritus,  the  "  Dialogues"  of  Lu- 
cian,  the  last  Attic  poet,  or  again,  the  "  Cyropedia"  and 
"  (Economicus"  of  Xenophon ;  there  is  no  aim  at  ef- 
fect, every  thing  being  uniform ;  they  are  common, 
every-day  scenes,  the  merit  of  which  lies  in  their 
charming  naturalness ;  there  is  no  strong  emphasis, 
no  vehement,  piquant  trait ;  you  scarcely  smile,  and 
yet  are  pleased  just  as  when  you  stop  before  %  wild 
flower  or  a  limpid  brook.  The  characters  sit 
down  and  get  up,  look  at  each  other  and  say  the 
simplest  things  with  no  more  effort  than  the  painted 
figures  on  the  walls  of  Pompeii  With  our  forced 
and  paralyzed  taste,  accustomed  to  strong  drink,  we 
are  inclined,  at  first,  to  pronounce  this  an  insipid 
beverage ;  but,  after  moistening  our  lips  with  it  for 
a  few  months,  we  are  unwilling  to  imbibe  any  but 
this  pure  water,  and  find  other  literature  spice,  ra- 
gout or  poisoa — Trace  this  disposition  in  their  art, 
and  especially  in  that  we  are  now  studying,  sculjrture. 
It  is  owing  to  this  turn  of  mind  that  they  have 
brought  it  to  perfection,  and  that  it  is  truly  their  na- 
tional art,  for  there  is  no  art  which  more  demands  a 


AET  IN   GREECE  109 

simplicity  of  mind,  sentiment  and  taste.  A  statue  is 
a  large  piece  of  marble  or  bronze,  and  a  large  statue 
generally  stands  isolated  upon  a  pedestal ;  it  could 
not  express  too  vehement  action  nor  a  too  impassion- 
ed air,  such  as  painting  admits  of,  and  which  is  al- 
lowable in  a  bas-relief,  for  this  reason,  that  the  figure 
would  seem  affected,  got  up  for  effect,  running  the 
risk  of  falling  into  the  style  of  Bernini.  A  statue, 
moreover,  is  solid ;  its  limbs  and  torso  are  weighty ; 
the  spectator  moves  around  it  and  realizes  its  mate- 
rial mass ;  it  is,  besides,  generally  nude,  or  almost 
nude ;  the  statuary,  accordingly,  is  obliged  to  give 
the  trunk  and  members  equal  importance  with  the 
head,  and  to  appreciate  animal  life  to  as  great  an  ex- 
tent as  moral  life.  Greek  civilization  is  the  only  one 
which  has  conformed  to  these  two  conditions.  At 
this  stage  of  things,  and  in  this  form  of  culture,  the 
body  is  an  interesting  object;  the  spirit  has  not  sub- 
ordinated it  and  cast  it  in  the  background ;  it  has  its 
own  importance.  The  spectator  attaches  equal  val- 
ue to  its  different  parts,  noble  or  ignoble,  to  the 
breast  which  breathes  so  freely,  to  the  strong  and 
flexible  neck,  to  the  muscles  rising  and  falling  around 


110  THE  PEILOSOPHT   OF 

the  spine,  to  the  arms  which  project  the  discus,  to 
the  legs  and  feet  whose  energetic  spring  impel  the 
man  ahead  in  racing  and  jumping.  A  youth  in  Plato 
reproaches  his  rival  for  having  a  stiff  body  and  a 
slender  neck.  Aristophanes  promises  the  young  man 
who  will  follow  his  advice  the  best  of  health  and 
gymnastic  beauty :  "  You  will  ever  have  a  stout  chest, 
a  clear  complexion,  broad  shoulders,  large  hips. .  .You 
shall  spend  your  time  in  the  gymnastic  schools  sleek 
and  blooming;  you  shall  descend  to  the  Academy 
and  run  races  beneath  the  sacred  olives  along  with 
some  modest  compeer,  crowned  with  white  reeds, 
redolent  of  yew  and  careless  ease,  and  of  leaf-shed- 
ding white  poplar,  rejoicing  in  the  season  of  spring, 
when  the  plane-tree  whispers  to  the  elm."*  These 
are  the  pleasures  and  perfections  of  a  blood  horse, 
and  Plato  somewhere  compares  young  men  to  fine 
coursers  dedicated  to  the  gods,  and  which  are  allow- 
ed to  stray  at  will  in  then-  pasture-grounds  with  a 
view  to  see  if  they  will  not  through  instinct  obtain 
wisdom  and  virtue.  Such  men  have  no  need  of  study 
to  enable  them  to  contemplate  understandingly  and 

*  Aristophanes,  translated  by  Hickie ;  Bohn's  Classical  Library. 


ART  IN'   GBEECE  HI 

with  pleasure  a  form  like  the  "  Theseus"  of  the  Par- 
thenon or  the  "  Achilles"  of  the  Louvre,  the  easy 
position  of  the  body  on  the  pelvis,  the  suppleness 
of  the  joints  and  limbs,  the  clean  curve  of  the  heel, 
the  network  of  moving  and  flowing  muscles  under- 
neath the  firm  and  transparent  skin.  They  appre- 
ciate its  beauty  the  same  as  an  English  gentleman 
fond  of  hunting  appreciates  the  breed,  structure  and 
fine  points  of  the  dogs  and  horses  he  raises.  They 
are  not  surprised  to  see  it  naked.  Modesty  has  not 
yet  become  prudery ;  the  spirit,  with  them,  does  not 
sit  by  itself  enthroned  at  sublime  heights  to  obscure 
and  degrade  organs  which  fulfil  less  noble  functions ; 
it  does  not  blush  at  and  does  not  hide  them ;  they 
excite  no  shame  and  provoke  no  smile.  The  terms 
which  designate  them  are  neither  ofiensive,  provoca- 
tive nor  scientific ;  Homer's  mention  of  them  is  the 
same  in  tone  as  that  of  other  portions  of  the  body. 
The  thoughts  they  awaken  are,  in  Aristophanes,  joy- 
ous without  being  filthy  as  in  Rabelais.  There  is  no 
secret  literature  devoted  to  them  which  austere  peo- 
ple and  delicate  minds  avoid.  The  idea  occurs  over 
and  over  again, on  the  stage,  before  full  audiences,  at 


112  TUE  PHILOSOPHT   OF 

the  festivals  in  honor  of  the  gods,  in  the  presence  of 
magistrates,  in  the  phallus  borne  by  young  virgins  and 
which  of  itself  is  invoked  as  a  divinity.*  In  Gi-eece 
all  the  great  natural  forces  are  divine,  the  divorce 
between  the  animal  and  the  spirit  not  yet  having 
taken  place. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  living  body,  complete 
and  without  a  veil,  admired  and  glorified,  standing 
on  its  pedestal  without  scandal  and  exposed  to  all 
eyes.  What  is  its  purpose  and  what  idea,  through 
sympathy,  is  the  statue  to  convey  to  spectators  ?  An 
idea  which,  to  us,  is  almost  without  meaning  because 
it  belongs  to  another  age  and  another  epoch  of  the 
human  mind.  The  head  is  without  significance ;  un- 
like ours  it  is  not  a  world  of  graduated  conceptions, 
excited  passions  and  a  medley  of  sentiments ;  the  face 
is  not  sunken,  sharp  and  disturbed ;  it  has  not  many 
characteristics,  scarcely  any  expression,  and  is  gener- 
ally in  repose.  Hence  its  suitableness  for  the  statu- 
ary ;  fasMoned  as  it  is  to-day  and  as  we  now  see  it, 
its  importance  would  be  out  of  proportion  to  and  a 
sacrifice  of  the  rest ;  we  would  cease  to  look  at  the 

*  Aristophanes,  in  the  "  Achamians. 


ART  IN   GBEEGE.  113 

trunk  and  limbs  or  would  be  tempted  to  clothe  them. 
On  the  contrary,  in  the  Greek  statue,  the  head  ex- 
cites no  more  interest  than  the  trunk  and  other  por- 
tions of  the  figure;  its  lines  and  its  planes  are  simply 
continuations  of  other  lines  and  other  planes;  its 
physiognomy  is  not  meditative,  but  calm  and  almost 
dull ;  you  detect  no  habitude,  no  aspiration,  no  ambi- 
tion transcending  present  physical  existence,  the  gen- 
eral attitude,  like  the  entire  action,  conspiring  in  the 
same  sense.  When  a  figure  displays  energetic  action 
for  a  given  purpose,  like  the  "  Discobulus"  at  Rome, 
the  "Fighting  Gladiator"  in  the  Louvre,  or  the 
"Dancing  Fawn"  of  Pompeii,  the  effect,  entirely 
physical,  exhausts  every  idea  and  every  desire  within 
its  capacity ;  so  long  as  the  discus  is  well  launched, 
the  blow  well  bestowed  or  parried,  the  dance  anima- 
ted and  in  good  tune,  it  is  satisfied,  the  mind  making 
no  further  effort.  Generally  speaking,  however,  the 
attitude  is  a  tranquil  one ;  the  figure  does  nothing, 
and  says  nothing ;  it  is  not  fixed,  wholly  concentrated 
in  a  profound  or  eager  expression ;  it  is  at  rest,  re- 
laxed, without  weariness;  now  standing,  slightly 
leaning  on  one  or  the  other  foot  now  half  turning, 


114  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

now  half  reclining ;  a  moment  ago  it  was  running 
like  the  young  Lacedemonian  girl;*  now,  like  the 
Flora,  it  holds  a  crown ;  its  action,  almost  always,  is 
one  of  indifference ;  the  idea  which  animates  it  is  so 
indefinite  and,  for  us,  so  far  removed  that  we  still, 
after  a  dozen  hypotheses,  cannot  precisely  determine 
what  the  Venus  of  Milo  is  doing.  It  lives,  and  that 
suffices,  and  it  sufficed  for  the  spectator  of  antiquity. 
The  contemporaries  of  Pericles  and  Plato  did  not  re- 
quire violent  and  surprising  effects  to  stimulate  wea- 
ry attention  or  to  irritate  an  uneasy  sensibility.  A 
blooming  and  healthy  body,  capable  of  all  virile  and 
gymnastic  actions,  a  man  or  woman  of  fine  growth 
and  noble  race,  a  serene  form  in  full  light,  a  simple 
and  natural  hannony  of  lines  happily  commingled, 
was  the  most  animated  spectacle  they  could  dwell 
on.  They  desired  to  contemplate  man  proportioned 
to  his  organs  and  to  his  condition  and  endowed  with 
every  perfection  within  these  limits ;  they  demanded 
nothing  more  and  nothing  less ;  any  thing  besides 
would  have  struck  them  as  extravagance,  deformity 

*  See  the  collection  of  casts  bj  M.  Bavaissoninthe  Ecole  des  Beaux 
Arts. 


ABT  IN   GREECE.  115 

or  disease.  Such  is  the  circle  -within  which  the  sim- 
plicity of  their  culture  kept  them,  and  beyond  which 
the  complexity  of  our  culture  has  impelled  us ;  here- 
in they  encountered  the  art,  statuary,  which  is  ap- 
propriate to  it ;  hence  it  is  that  we  have  left  this  art 
behind  us,  we  of  to-day  having  to  resort  to  them  for 

our  models. 
I 


INSTITUTIONS. 


AUT  IN  QBEEGE.  119 


I. 

If  ever  the  correspondence  of  art  with  life  dis- 
closed itself  through  visible  traits,  it  is  in  the  history 
of  Greek  statuary.  To  produce  man  in  marble  or 
bronze,  the  Greek  first  formed  the  living  man,  per- 
fect sculpture  with  them  being  developed  at  the 
same  moment  as  the  institution  through  which  was 
produced  the  perfect  body.  One  accompanies  the 
other,  like  the  Dioscuri,  and,  through  a  fortunate  con- 
junction, the  doubtful  dawn  of  distant  history  is  at 
once  lit  up  by  their  two  growing  rays. 

The  two  appear  together  in  the  first  half  of  the 
seventh  century  (B.  C).  At  this  epoch  occur  the 
great  technical  discoveries  of  art.  About  689  Buta- 
des  of  Sicyon  undertakes  to  model  and  bake  figures 
of  clay,  which  leads  him  to  decorate  the  tops  of  roofs 
with  masks.  At  the  same  time  Rhoikos  and  Theo- 
dores of  Samos  discover  the  process  of  casting  bronze 
in  a  mould.  Towards  650  Malas  of  Chios  executes 
the  first  statues  in  marble,  and,  in  successive  olympi- 


120  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

ads,  during  the  latter  part  of  that  century,  and  the 
whole  of  the  following  century,  we  see  statuary 
blocked  out  to  become  finished  and  perfect  after  the 
glorious  Median  wars.  This  is  the  period  at  which 
orchestral  and  gymnastic  institutions  become  regular 
and  fully  developed.  A  social  cycle  terminates,  that 
of  Homer  and  the  epos,  while  another  begins,  that  of 
Archilochus,  Callinus,  Terpander  and  Olympus  and 
of  lyric  poesy.  Between  Homer  and  his  followers, 
who  belong  to  the  ninth  and  eighth  centuries,  and 
the  inventors  of  new  metres  and  new  music  who  be- 
long to  the  next  century,  there  occurs  a  vast  trans- 
formation of  social  habits  and  organization. 

Man's  horizon  becomes  more  and  more  extend- 
ed every  day.  The  Mediterranean  is  thoroughly  ex- 
plored ;  Sicily  and  Egypt,  which  Homer  only  knew 
through  storied  reports,  become  well  known.  In  632 
the  Samians  were  the  first  to  sail  as  far  as  Tartessus, 
and,  out  of  the  tithes  of  their  profits,  they  consecrated 
to  their  goddess  Hera  a  huge  bronze  cup  decorated 
with  griffons  and  supported  by  three  kneeling  fig- 
ures, eleven  cubits  high.  Multiplied  colonies  -arise 
to  people  and  cultivate  the  coasts  of  Magna  Grsecia, 


ART  m  GREECE.  121 

Sicily,  Asia  IVIinor  and  the  Euxine.  Industrial  pur- 
suits of  all  kinds  flourish ;  the  fifty-oared  boats  of  an- 
cient poems  become  galleys  with  two  hundred  rowers. 
A  iiative  of  Chios  discovers  the  art  of  softening,  tem- 
pering and  welding  ii'on.  The  Dorian  temple  is  erect- 
ed. Money,  figures  and  writing,  of  which  Homer  was 
ignorant,  are  known.  There  is  a  change  in  tactics ; 
men  fight  on  foot  and  in  line  instead  of  combating  in 
chariots  and  without  discipline.  Human  society,  so 
scattered  in  the  Hiad  and  Odyssey,  becomes  more 
closely  united.  Instead  of  an  Ithaca  where  each  family 
lives  apart  under  its  independent  head,  where  there 
is  no  public  authority,  where  twenty  years  could  pass 
without  convoking  a  public  assembly,  walled  and 
guarded  cities,  provided  with  magistrates  and  sub- 
ject to  a  police,  are  founded  and  become  republics  of 
equal  citizens  under  elected  chiefs. 

At  the  same  time,  and  in  consequence  of  this,  in- 
tellectual culture  is  diversified,  difiused  and  re-invig- 
orated. It  unquestionably  remains  poetic  as  prose 
does  not  appear  until  later,  but  the  monotonous  mel- 
opoeia  which  the  epic  hexameter  sustains  gives  way 
to  a  multitude  of  varied  songs  and  diflerent  metres 


122  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

The  pentameter  is  added  to  the  hexameter ;  the  tro- 
chee, iambic  and  anapest  are  invented ;  new  and  old 
metrical  measures  are  combined  in  the  distich,  the 
strophe  and  others  of  all  descriptions.  The  cithern 
which  had  but  four  strings  receives  seven ;  Terpander 
establishes  his  modes  and  gives  the  names  of  music  ;* 
Olympus,  and,  next,  Thales  succeed  in  adapting  the 
rhythms  of  the  cithern,  flute  and  voice  to  the  various 
shades  of  poetic  diction  which  they  accompany.  Let 
us  attempt  to  picture  to  ourselves  this  world,  so  re- 
mote, and  whose  fragments  are  almost  all  lost ;  there 
is  none  which  differs  so  much  from  our  own  and 
which,  to  be  comprehended,  demands  so  great  an  ef- 
fort of  the  imagination.  It  is  nevertheless  the  prim- 
itive and  enduring  mould  from  which  the  Greek 
world  issued. 

When  we  form  a  conception  of  lyric  poetry  we 
recur  at  once  to  the  odes  of  Victor  Hugo  or  the 
stanzas  of  Lamartine,  a  poesy  which  is  read  silently 
or  in  a  low  voice,  alongside  of  a  friend  in  some 
quiet  and  secluded  spot ;  our  civilization  renders  po- 

*  These  nomes  were  simple  tunes  from  which  others  conld  he  de- 
rived by  slight  variations.    Smith's  Dictionary. 


ART  IN   QREEGE.  123 

esy  the  confidential  intercourse  of  two  kindred  spir- 
its. That  of  the  Greeks  was  uttered  not  only  in  a 
loud  tone  but  it  was  declaimed  and  chanted  to  the 
sound  of  instruments  and,  again,  accompanied  with 
pantomime  and  dance.  Suppose  Delsarte  or  Mad- 
ame Yiardot  singing  a  recitative  from  "Iphigenia" 
or  "  Orpheus,"  Rouget  de  I'Isle  or  Rachel  declaim- 
ing the  "Marseillaise"  or  a  chorus  from  Gluck's 
"  Alceste,"  such  as  we  see  on  the  stage,  with  a  cor- 
ypheus,  orchestra  and  groups  moving  about  before  the 
steps  of  a  temple,  not  as  nowadays  before  the  foot- 
lights and  surrounded  by  painted  scenery,  but  on  a 
public  square  and  beneath  the  splendor  of  sunshine, 
and  you  will  have  the  least  imperfect  idea  of  Gre- 
cian f^tes  and  customs.  The  entire  man,  body  and 
soul,  is  in  commotion ;  the  verses  that  remain  to  us 
are  simply  the  detached  leaves  of  an  opera  libretto. 
At  a  funeral  in  a  Corsican  village  the  "  voc^ratrice" 
improvises  and  declaims  songs  of  vengeance  over  the 
corpse  of  a  murdered  man ;  also  wailing-songs  over 
the  coffin  of  a  young  girl  who  has  died  before  her 
maturity.  In  the  Calabrian  mountains  and  in  Sicily 
the  yoimg  people,  on  days  given  up  to  dancing,  rep- 


124:  THE  PHILOSOPET  OF 

resent  in  their  postures  and  gestures  petty  dramas 
and  amatory  scenes.  Imagine,  in  a  similar  climate, 
under  a  still  finer  sky,  in  small  cities  where  every- 
body is  well  acquainted  with  each  other,  equally 
gesticulative  and  imaginative  men,  as  quick  in  emo- 
tion and  expression,  with  a  still  more  animated  and 
fresher  impulse,  more  creative  and  ingenious  mental- 
ly, and  much  more  inclined  to  embellish  every  ac- 
tion and  moment  of  human  existence.  This  musical 
pantomime,  which  we  only  encounter  in  isolated 
fragments  and  in  out-of-the-way  places,  is  that  which 
is  to  develope  and  branch  out  in  a  hundred  different 
directions  and  furnish  the  matter  for  a  complete  lit- 
erature ;"  there  is  no  sentiment  that  it  will  not  ex- 
press, no  scene  of  public  or  private  life  which  it  will 
not  adorn,  no  motive  or  situation  to  which  it  will 
not  suffice.  It  becomes  the  natural  language,  as  uni- 
versal and  of  as  common  usage  as  our  written  or 
printed  prose ;  the  latter  is  a  sort  of  dry  notation  by 
which  nowadays  one  pure  intellect  communicates 
with  another  pure  intellect ;  when  compared  with  the 
wholly  imitative  and  material  language  of  the  for- 
mer it  is  nothing  more  than  algebra  and  a  residue. 


ART  m   GREECE.  125 

The  accent  of  the  French  language  is  uniform; 
it  has  no  rhythmical  modulation;  its  long  and  short 
syllables  are  slightly  marked  and  scarcely  distin- 
guishable. One  must  have  heard  a  musical  tongue, 
the  prolonged  melody  of  a  beautiful  voice  reciting 
one  of  Tasso's  stanzas,  to  appreciate  the  effect  of  au- 
ricular sensation  on  inward  emotion ;  to  know  what 
power  sound  and  rhythm  exercise  over  the  entire 
being ;  how  contagious  their  influence  is  throughout 
our  nervous  machinery.  Such  was  that  Greek  lan- 
guage of  which  we  have  simply  the  skeleton.  We 
see  by  the  commentators  and  scholiasts  that  sound 
and  measure  were  of  equal  importance  with  idea  and 
image.  The  poet  inventor  of  a  species  of  metre  in- 
vented a  species  of  sensation.  This  or  that  group 
of  long  and  short  syllables  is  necessarily  an  allegro., 
another  a  largo^  another  a  scJierzo^  and  not  only  af- 
fects the  thought,  but  likewise  the  action  and  music, 
its  inflections  and  character.  Thus  did  the  age  which 
produced  a  vast  system  of  lyric  poesy  produce  at  the 
same  stroke  the  no  less  vast  orchestral  system.  We 
are  familiar  with  the  names  of  two  hundred  Greek 
dances.    Up  to  sixteen  years  of  age,  at  Athens,  edu- 


126  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

cation  was  entirely  orchestral.  "In  those  days," 
says  Aristophanes,  "  the  youth  of  the  same  quarter 
of  the  town  marched  together  through  the  streets  to 
the  school  of  the  Harp-master,  in  good  order  and 
with  bare  feet,  even  if  it  were  to  snow  as  thick  as 
meal.  There  they  had  their  places  without  sitting 
cross-legged,  and  were  taught  the  hymn  '  Mighty 
Pallas,  devastator  of  cities,'  or  *  The  shout  heard 
afar,'  raising  their  voices  to  a  higher  pitch  with  the 
strong  and  rugged  harmony  transmitted  by  their 
fathers." 

A  young  man  named  Hippocleides,  belonging  to 
one  of  the  first  families,  came  to  Sicyon  to  the  court 
of  the  tyrant  Cleisthenes  and,  being  skilled  in  all  phys- 
ical exercises,  was  desirous  of  exhibiting  his  good  ed- 
ucation.* Ordering  a  flute-player  to  play  an  appro- 
priate air,  he  danced  it  accordingly,  and,  soon  after, 
causing  a  table  to  be  brought,  he  got  upon  it  and 
danced  the  Lacedemonian  and  Athenian  figures. — 
Thus  disciplined,  they  were  both  "singers  and 
dancer8,"t  all  furnishing  all  with  noble,  picturesque 
and  poetic  spectacles,  and  which  at  a  later  period 
*  Herodotus,  VI.  ch.  cxis.  +  Xuclan. 


ABT  IN  GREECE.  127 

were  obtained  for  hire.  In  the  banquets  of  the 
clubs,*  after  the  repast,  they  made  libations  and  sang 
the  paeon  in  honor  of  Apollo  ;  and  then  came  the  fete 
properly  so  called  {JB^omos),  the  pantomimic  decla- 
mation, the  lyric  recitation  to  the  sound  of  the  cith- 
ern or  flute,  a  solo  followed  by  a  refrain,  as  subse- 
quently the  song  of  Harmodius  and  Aristogiton,  or 
a  duett  sung  and  danced,  like,  at  a  later  period,  in 
the  banquet  of  Xenophon,  the  meeting  of  Bacchus 
and  Ariadne.  When  a  citizen  constituted  himself  a 
tyrant,  and  wished  to  enjoy  his  position,  he  extend- 
ed festivities  of  this  kind  around  him  and  perma- 
nently established  them.  Polycrates  of  Samos  had 
two  poets,  Ibycos  and  Anacreon,  to  superintend 
their  arrangement  and  to  compose  for  them  music 
and  verses.  The  actors  of  these  poetic  compositions 
consisted  of  the  handsomest  youths  that  could  be 
found;  Bathyll  who  played  the  flute  and  sang  in 
the  Ionian  manner,  Cleobulus  with  the  beautiful  vir- 
gin eyes,  Simalos  who  wielded  the  pectis  in  the  cho- 
rus, and  Smerdis  with  the  flowing  locks  whom  they 
went  in  quest  of  among  the  Cicones  of  Thrace.  It 
♦  PhUities,  societies  of  friends. 


128  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

was  an  operatic  entertainment  in  private.  The  lyric 
poets  of  this  epoch  are,  in  a  similar  manner,  chorus, 
masters ;  their  dwelling  is  a  species  of  conservatory,* 
a  "House  of  the  Muses:"  there  were  several  of 
them  at  Lesbos,  besides  that  of  Sappho,  and  which 
were  conducted  by  women;  they  had  pupils  from 
the  neighboring  islands  and  coasts,  from  Miletus 
Colophon,  Salamis  and  Pamphylia;  here,  during 
long  years  were  taught  music,  recitation  and  the  art 
of  beautiful  posture;  they  ridiculed  the  ignorant 
"  peasant  girls  who  did  not  know  how  to  raise  their 
dress  above  the  ankle ;"  a  corypheus  was  furnished 
by  these  establishments  and  choruses  drilled  for  fu- 
neral lamentations  and  wedding  pomps.  Thus  did 
private  life  throughout,  in  its  ceremonies  as  well  as 
amusements,  contribute  to  make  of  man — in  the  best 
sense  of  the  term,  however,  and  with  perfect  dignity 
— what  we  designate  as  a  singer,  a  figurant,  a  model 
and  an  actor. 

Public  life    contributed  to   the   same   end.     In 
Greece  the  orchestral  system  enters  into  religion  and 

*  Simonides  of  Ceos  usually  occupied  the  "  choregion"  near  the  tem- 
ple of  Apollo. 


AliT  IN   GREECE.  129 

politics,  during  peace  and  during  wai',  in  honor  of 
the  dead  and  to  glorify  victorsj  At  the  Ionian  f^te 
of  Thargelia  Mimnermus  the  poet  and  his  mistress 
Nanno  led  the  procession  playing  the  flute.  Calli- 
nos,  Alcseus  and  Theognis  exhorted  their  fellow-citi- 
zens or  their  party,  in  verses  which  they  themselves 
sung.  When  the  Athenians,  repeatedly  vanquished, 
had  decreed  the  penalty  of  death  against  whoever 
should  propose  to  recover  Salamis,  Solon,  in  a  her- 
ald's costume,  with  Mercury's  cap  on  his  head,  ap- 
peared suddenly  in  the  assembly,  mounted  the  her- 
ald's stone,  and  recited  an  elegy  with  so  much  power 
that  the  young  men  set  out  immediately  "  to  deliver 
the  lovely  island  and  relieve  Athens  of  shame  and 
dishonor."  The  Spartans,  on  a  campaign,  recited 
songs  in  their  tents.  At  evening,  after  their  repast, 
each  in  turn  arose  to  repeat  and  gesticulate  the  ele- 
gy, while  the  polemarchus  gave  to  the  one  who  bore 
away  the  prize  a  larger  ration  of  meat.  It  was  cer- 
tainly a  fine  spectacle  to  see  these  tall  young  men, 
the  strongest  and  best  formed  in  Greece,  with  their 
long  hair  carefully  fastened  at  the  top  of  the  head, 
and  in  a  red  tunic,  broad  polished  bucklers  and  with 


130  THE  PEIL080PEY  OF 

an  air  of  hero  and  athlete,  arise  and  sing  an  ode  like 
this : — "  With  spirit  let  us  fight  for  this  land,  and  for 
.our  children  die,  being  no  longer  chary  of  our  lives. 
Fight,  then,  young  men,  standing  fast  one  by  anoth- 
er, nor  be  beginners  of  cowardly  flight  or  fear.  But 
rouse  a  great  and  valiant  spirit  in  your  breasts,  and 
love  not  life,  when  ye  contend  with  men.  And  the 
elders,  whose  limbs  are  no  longer  active,  the  old  de- 
sert not  or  forsake.  For  surely  this  were  shameful, 
that  fallen  amid  the  foremost  champions,  in  front  of 
the  youths,  an  older  man  should  lie  low,  having  his 
head  now  white  and  his  beard  hoary,  breathing  out 
a  valiant  spirit  in  the  dust ;  whilst  he  covers  with  his 
hands  his  gory  loins. — Yet  all  this  befits  the  young 
whilst  he  enjoys  the  brilliant  bloom  of  youth.  To 
mortal  men  and  women  he  is  lovely  to  look  upon, 
whilst  he  lives ;  and  noble  when  he  has  fallen  in  the 
foremost  ranks. — Shameful  too  is  a  corpse  lymg  low 
in  the  dust,  wounded  behind  in  the  back  by  the  point 
of  a  spear.  Rather  let  every  one  with  firm  stride 
await  the  enemy,  having  both  feet  fixed  on  the 
ground  biting  his  lip  with  his  teeth,  and  having  cov- 
ered with  the  hollow  of  his  broad  shield  thighs  and 


•       ART  IN   GREECE.  131 

shins  below  and  breast  and  shoulders.  Then  let  him 
learn  war  by  doing  bold  deeds,  nor  let  him  stand 
with  his  shield  out  of  the  range  of  weapons.  But  let 
each  drawing  nigh  in  close  fray,  hit  his  foe,  wound- 
ing him  with  long  lance  and  sword.  Having  set 
foot  beside  foot,  and  having  fixed  shield  against 
shield  and  crest  on  crest,  and  helmet  on  helmet, 
and  breast  against  breast  struggle  in  fight  with  his 
man."* 

There  were  similar  songs  for  every  circumstance 
of  military  life,  and,  among  others,  anapests  for  at- 
tacks to  the  sound  of  flutes.  A  spectacle  of  this  kind 
occurred  during  the  early  enthusiasm  of  our  Revolu- 
tion, the  day  when  Dumouriez,  placing  his  hat  on  the 
end  of  his  sword,  and,  scaling  the  parapet  of  Jem- 
mapes,  burst  forth  with  the  "  Chant  du  Depart,"  the 
soldiers,  on  a  run,  singing  it  with  him.  In  this  great 
discordant  clamor  we  can  imagine  a  regular  battle- 
chorus,  an  antique  musical  march.  There  was  one 
of  these  after  the  victory  of  Salamis,  when  Sophocles, 
fifteen  years  old,  and  the  handsomest  youth  in 
Athens,  stripped  himself  as  the  ceremony  prescribed 

Tyrtaeus.    Bohn's  classical  library. 


130  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

an  air  of  hero  and  athlete,  arise  and  sing  an  ode  like 
this : — "  With  spirit  let  us  fight  for  this  land,  and  for 
.our  children  die,  heing  no  longer  chary  of  our  lives. 
Fight,  then,  young  men,  standing  fast  one  by  anoth- 
er, nor  be  beginners  of  cowardly  flight  or  fear.  But 
rouse  a  great  and  valiant  spirit  in  your  breasts,  and 
love  not  life,  when  ye  contend  with  men.  And  the 
elders,  whose  limbs  are  no  longer  active,  the  old  de- 
sert not  or  forsake.  For  surely  this  were  shameful, 
that  fallen  amid  the  foremost  champions,  in  front  of 
the  youths,  an  older  man  should  lie  low,  having  his 
head  now  white  and  his  beard  hoary,  breathing  out 
a  valiant  spirit  in  the  dust ;  whilst  he  covers  with  his 
hands  his  gory  loins. — Yet  all  this  befits  the  young 
whilst  he  enjoys  the  brilliant  bloom  of  youth.  To 
mortal  men  and  women  he  is  lovely  to  look  upon, 
whilst  he  lives ;  and  noble  when  he  has  fallen  in  the 
foremost  ranks. — Shameful  too  is  a  corpse  lymg  low 
in  the  dust,  wounded  behind  in  the  back  by  the  point 
of  a  spear.  Rather  let  every  one  with  firm  stride 
await  the  enemy,  having  both  feet  fixed  on  the 
ground  biting  his  lip  with  his  teeth,  and  having  cov- 
ered with  the  hollow  of  his  broad  shield  thighs  and 


•       ART  IN   GREECE.  131 

shins  below  and  breast  and  shoulders.  Then  let  him 
learn  war  by  doing  bold  deeds,  nor  let  him  stand 
with  his  shield  out  of  the  range  of  weapons.  But  let 
each  drawing  nigh  in  close  fray,  hit  his  foe,  wound- 
ing him  with  long  lance  and  sword.  Having  set 
foot  beside  foot,  and  having  fixed  shield  against 
shield  and  crest  on  crest,  and  helmet  on  helmet, 
and  breast  against  breast  struggle  in  fight  with  his 
man."* 

There  were  similar  songs  for  every  circumstance 
of  military  life,  and,  among  others,  anapests  for  at- 
tacks to  the  sound  of  flutes.  A  spectacle  of  this  kind 
occurred  during  the  early  enthusiasm  of  our  Revolu- 
tion, the  day  when  Dumouriez,  placing  his  hat  on  the 
end  of  his  sword,  and,  scaling  the  parapet  of  Jem- 
mapes,  burst  forth  with  the  "  Chant  du  Depart,"  the 
soldiers,  on  a  run,  singing  it  with  him.  In  this  great 
discordant  clamor  we  can  imagine  a  regular  battle- 
chorus,  an  antique  musical  march.  There  was  one 
of  these  after  the  victory  of  Salamis,  when  Sophocles, 
fifteen  years  old,  and  the  handsomest  youth  in 
Athens,  stripped  himself  as  the  ceremony  prescribed 
Tyrtaeus.    Bohn's  dassical  library. 


132  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

and  danced  a  paeon  in  honor  of  Apollo  in  the  midst 
of  the  military  parade  and  before  the  trophy. 

Worship,  however,  furnished  a  much  larger  contri- 
bution to  the  orchestral  system  than  war  or  politics. 
According  to  the  Greeks,  the  most  gratifying  spec- 
tacle to  the  gods  was  that  afforded  by  fine,  blooming^ 
fully  developed  bodies  in  every  attitude  that  could 
display  health  and  strength.  Hence  it  is  that  their 
most  sacred  festivals  were  operatic  processions  and 
grave  ballets.  Chosen  citizens,  and  sometimes  as  at 
Sparta,  the  whole  city*  formed  choruses  in  honor  of 
the  gods ;  each  important  town  had  its  poets  who 
composed  music  and  verse,  arranged  the  groups  and 
evolutions,  taught  postures,  drilled  the  actors  a  long 
time  and  regulated  the  costumes ;  we  have  but  one 
instance  of  the  kind  at  the  present  day  to  suggest 
the  ceremony,  that  of  the  series  of  performances  still 
given,  every  ten  years,  at  Ober-Ammergau  in  Bava- 
ria, where,  since  the  middle  ages,  the  inhabitants  of 
the  village,  some  five  or  six  hundred  persons,  educa- 
ted for  it  from  infancy,  solemnly  perform  Christ's 
Passion.     In  these  f^tes,  Alcman  and  Stesichorus, 

♦  The  Gymnopaedia. 


ART  m  GREECE.  133 

■were  at  the  same  time  poets,  cnapel-masters,  and  bal- 
let directors ;  sometimes  officiating  themselves  and  as 
leaders  in  the  great  compositions  wherein  choruses 
of  young  men  and  women  publicly  appeared  in  hero- 
ic or  divine  legends.  One  of  these  sacred  ballets, 
the  dithyrambus,  became,  at  a  later  period,  Greek 
tragedy.  This  in  itself,  is  at  first  simply  a  religious 
festival,  reduced  and  perfected,  and  transported  from 
the  public  square  to  the  enclosure  of  a  theatre ;  a 
Buccession  of  choruses  broken  by  recitation  and  by 
the  melopceia  of  a  principal  personage  analogous  to 
an  "Evangile"  by  Sebastian  Bach,  the  "Seven 
"Works"  of  Haydn,  an  oratorio,  or  a  Sixtine-chapel 
mass  in  which  the  same  personages  would  sing  the 
parts  and  constitute  the  groups. 

Among  all  these  poetic  works,  the  most  popular 
and  the  best  adapted  to  making  us  comprehend  these 
remote  customs,  are  the  cantatas  which  honor  the 
victors  in  the  four  great  games.  People  came  to 
Pindar  for  these  from  all  parts  of  Greece,  Sicily  and 
the  islands.  He  went  or  sent  his  friend,  ^neas  of 
Stymphalus,  to  teach  to  the  chorus  the  dance,  the 
music,  and  the  verses  of  his  song.   The  festival  began 


136  S'HE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

we  catch  from  time  to  time  an  accent  of  these  vibra- 
ting tones ;  we  see  as  in  a  flash  the  grandiose  atti- 
tude of  the  crowned  youth,  advancing  out  of  the 
chorus  to  utter  the  words  of  Jason  or  the  vow  of 
Hercules;  we  divine  the  quick  gesticulation,  the 
outstretched  arms,  the  large  muscles  swelling  his 
breast ;  we  encounter  here  and  there  a  fragment  of 
the  poetic  hue  as  brilliant  as  a  lately  disinterred 
painting  in  Pompeii 

Now  it  is  the  corypheus  who  advances:  "As 
when  a  man  takes  and  gives  out  of  his  wealthy  hand 
a  drinking-cup,  frothing  within  with  the  dew  of  the 
grape,  presenting  it  to  a  youthful  son-in-law  on  his 
passing  from  one  house  to  another,  *  *  *  so  I  now  in 
sending  liquid  nectar,  the  gift  of  the  Muses  and  the 
sweet  fruit  of  my  mind,  to  men  who  have  carried  off 
prizes  from  the  contest,  compliment  them  as  victors 
at  Olympia  and  Pytho."* 

Now  the  chorus  ceases  and  then  the  alternating 
half-chorus  developes  in  crescendo  the  superb  sonor- 
ousness of  the  rolling  and  triumphant  ode.  "  "What- 
ever Zeus  loveth  not  flies  in  alarm  on  hearing  the 

*  The  Odes  of  Pindar,  translated  by  Paley. 


ART  IN   GREECE.  137 

loud  call  of  the  Pierides  both  on  earth  and  in  the 
raging  sea ;  and  he  who  lies  in  the  awful  hell,  that 
enemy  of  the  gods,  Typhceus  with  his  hundred  heads, 
whom  erst  the  Cilician  cave  of  many  names  did  rear, 
but  now  the  sea-enclosing  cliffs  beyond  Cumae  (do 
hol(^,  while  Sicily  presses  down  his  shaggy  breast, 
and  that  pillar  of  heaven  keeps  him  fast,  the  snowy 
^tna,  all  the  year  through  the  nurse  of  bright  daz- 
zling snow.  From  it  are  belched  forth  out  of  its  in- 
most depths  the  purest  jets  of  unapproachable  fire. 
In  the  daytime  the  streams  (of  lava)  pour  forth  a 
lurid  torrent  of  smoke,  but  in  the  dark  ruddy  flame 
rolling  in  volumes  carries  rocks  into  the  deep  level 
sea  with  a  horrible  clatter.  'Tis  that  snake-formed 
monster  that  sends  up  from  beneath  these  most  dread- 
ful founts  of  tire, — a  prodigy  marvellous  to  behold, 
and  a  wonder  even  to  hear  of  from  passers-by,  how 
that  he  lies  imprisoned  between  the  dark-leaved 
heights  of  ^tna  and  the  plain  below,  and  his  rocky 
bed,  furrowing  all  his  back,  galls  him  as  he  lies  upon 
it.* 

The  bubbling  flow  of  images  increases  broken  at 

*  The  Odes  of  Pindar,  translated  by  Paley. 


138  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

each  step  by  sudden  jets,  refluxes  and  leaps  whose 
boldness  and  enormity  permit  no  translation.  It  is 
plain  that  these  Greeks,  so  lucid  and  calm  in  their 
prose,  become  intoxicated  and  are  thrown  off  their 
balance  by  lyric  inspiration  and  madness.  These  are 
excesses  out  of  all  harmony  with  our  blunted  organs 
and  our  circumspect  civilization.  Nevertheless  we 
can  divine  enough  of  them  to  comprehend  what  such 
a  culture  contributes  to  the  arts  which  represent  the 
human  form.  It  shapes  man  through  the  chorus ;  it 
teaches  him  attitudes  and  gestures,  the  sculptural 
action ;  it  places  him  in  a  gi'oup  which  is  a  moving 
bas-relief;  it  is  wholly  directed  to  making  him  a 
spontaneous  actor,  one  who  performs  fervidly  and 
for  his  own  pleasure,  who  sets  himself  up  as  a  spec- 
tacle to  himself,  who  carries  the  gravity,  freedom, 
dignity  and  spirit  of  a  citizen  into  the  evolutions  of 
the  figurant  and  the  mimicry  of  the  dancer.  The  or- 
chestral system  provided  sculpture  with  its  postures, 
action,  draperies,  and  gi'oupings ;  the  motive  of  the 
Parthenon  frieze  is  the  Panathenaic  procession,  while 
the  Pyrrhica  suggj^sts  the  sculptures  of  Phigalia  and 
of  Bud  rum. 


AET  IN  GREECE.  139 


IL 

Alongside  of  the  orchestra  there  was,  in  Greece, 
an  institution  still  more  national  and  which  formed 
the  second  half  of  education,  the  gymnasium.  We 
already  meet  with  it  in  Homer;  his  heroes  wrestle, 
launch  the  discus,  and  hold  foot  and  chariot  races ; 
he  who  is  not  skilled  in  bodily  exercises  passes  for  a 
man  of  a  low  class ; 

....  A  mere  trader,  looking  out 
For  freight  and  watching  o'er  the  wares  that  form 
The  cargo.* 

The  institution,  however,  is  not  yet  either  regular, 
pura  or  complete.  There  are  no  fixed  localities  or 
epochs  for  the  games.  They  are  celebrated  as  the 
opportunity  offers,  on  the  death  of  a  hero  or  in  honor 
of  a  stranger.  Many  of  the  exercises  which  serve 
to  increase  vigor  and  agility  are  unknown  in  them ; 
on  the  other  hand,  they  add  exercises  with  weapons, 

*  The  Odyssey,  translated  by  W.  C.  Bryant. 


140  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

the  duel  even  to  blood,  aud  practise  with  the  bow 
and  pike.  It  is  only  in  the  following  period,  as  with 
the  orchestral  system  and  lyric  poesy,  that  we  see 
them  develope,  take  root  and  assume  the  final  shape 
and  importance  with  which  we  are  familiar.  The 
signal  was  given  by  the  Dorians,  a  new  population 
of  pure  Greek  race,  who,  issuing  from  the  mountains, 
invaded  the  Pelopoimesas,  and,  like  the  Neustrian 
Franks,  introduced  their  tactics,  imposed  their  rule 
and  renewed  the  national  life  with  their  intact  spirit. 
Tliey  were  rude  and  energetic  men  bearing  some  re- 
semblance to  the  mediaeval  Swiss;  not  so  lively  as 
and  much  less  brilliant  than  the  lonians ;  possessing 
a  fondness  for  tradition,  a  sentiment  of  reverence,  the 
instinct  of  discipline,  a  calm,  virile,  and  elevated 
spirit,  and  whose  genius  showed  its  imprint  in  the 
rigid  severity  of  their  worship,  as  in  the  heroic  •  antt 
moral  character  of  their  gods.  The  principal  section, 
that  of  the  Spartans,  established  itself  in  Laconia 
amidst  the  ancient  inhabitants  either  subdued  or  un- 
der servile  dominion ;  nine  thousand  families  of  proud 
and  hard  masters  in  a  city  without  walls,  to  keep 
obedient  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  farmers 


ART  m  GREECE.  141 

and  two  hundred  thousand  slaves,  constituted  an 
army  immovably  encamped  amidst  enemies  ten  times 
more  numerous. 

On  this  leading  trait  all  the  others  depend.  The 
regime,  prescribed  by  the  situation,  gradually  be- 
came fixed,  and,  towards  the  epoch  of  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Olympic  games,  it  was  complete.  Indi- 
vidual interests  and  caprices  had  disappeared  before 
the  idea  of  public  safety.  The  discipline  is  that  of 
a  regiment  threatened  with  constant  danger.  The 
Spartan  is  forbidden  to  trade,  to  follow  any  pursuit, 
to  alienate  his  land,  and  to  increase  its  rent ;  he  is  to 
think  of  nothing  but  of  being  a  soldier.  If  he  trav- 
els, he  may  use  the  horse,  slave  and  provisions  of  his 
neighbor;  service  among  comrades  is  a  matter  of 
right,  while  proprietorship  is  not  strict.  The  new- 
born child  is  brought  before  a  council  of  elders,  and 
if  it  is  too  feeble  or  deformed,  it  is  put  to  death ; 
none  but  sound  men  are  admitted  into  Ihe  army,  in 
which  all,  from  the  cradle,  are  conscripts.  An  old 
man  past  begetting  children  selects  a  young  man 
whom  he  takes  to  his  home,  because  each  household 
must    furnish    recruits.      Perfect  men  interchange 


142  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

wives  in  order  to  be  better  friends  ;  in  a  camp  there 
is  no  scrupulousness  about  family  matters,  many 
things  being  held  in  common.  People  eat  together 
in  squads,  like  a  mess  which  has  its  own  regulations 
and  in  which  each  furnishes  a  part  in  money  or  its 
equivalent.  Military  duty  takes  precedence  of  ev- 
ery thing.  It  is  a  reproach  to  linger  at  home ;  bar- 
rack life  is  superior  to  domestic  life.  A  young 
bridegroom  seeks  his  wife  in  secret  and  passes  the 
day  as  usual  in  the  drilling-school  or  on  the  parade- 
ground.  Children,  for  the  same  reason,  are  military 
pupils  (agelai),  brought  up  in  common,  and,  after  sev- 
en years  of  age,  distributed  into  companies.  In  re- 
lation to  them  every  perfected  adult  is  an  elder,  an 
officer  (Paidonomos),  and  can  punish  them  without 
paternal  interference.  Barefoot,  clothed  with  a  sin- 
gle garment,  and  with  the  same  dress  in  winter  as  in 
summer,  they  march  through  the  streets,  silently 
and  with  dosvncast  eyes,  like  so  many  youthful  con- 
scripts to  the  recruiting-station.  Costume  is  a  uni- 
form, and  habits,  like  tlie  gait,  are  prescribed.  The 
young  sleep  on  a  heap  of  rushes,  bathe  daily  in  the 
cool  waters  of  the  Eurotas.  eat  little  and  fast,  and 


ART  TN   GREECE.  143 

live  worse  in  the  city  than  in  the  camp,  because  the 
future  soldier  must  be  hardened.  Divided  into 
troops  of  a  hundred,  each  under  a  young  chief,  they 
fight  together  with  fists  and  feet,  which  is  the  ap- 
prenticeship for  war.  If  they  wish  to  add  any  thing 
to  their  ordinarily  meagre  diet,  they  must  steal  it 
from  the  dwellings  or  the  farms :  a  soldier  must  know 
how  to  keep  himself  alive  by  marauding.  Now  and 
then  they  are  let  loose  in  ambush  on  the  highways, 
and,  at  evening,  they  kill  belated  Helots :  a  sight 
of  blood  is  a  good  thing,  and  it  is  well  to  get  the 
hand  in  early. 

As  to  the  arts,  these  consist  of  those  suitable  for 
an  army.  The  Dorians  brought  along  with  them  a 
special  type  of  music,  the  Dorian  mode,  the  only  one, 
perhaps,  whose  origin  is  purely  Grecian.*  It  is  of  a 
grave,  manly,  elevated  character,  very  simple  and 
even  harsh,  admirable  for  inspiring  patience  and  en- 
ergy. It  is  not  left  to  individual  caprice ;  the  law 
prohibits  the  introduction  of  the  variations,  enerva- 
tions and  fancies  of  the  foreign  style ;  it  is  a  public 

*  Plato,  in  the  "Theages,"  says,  speaking  of  the  good  man  who  dis- 
courses on  virtue,  "In  the  wonderful  harmony  of  action  and  speech  we 
recognize  the  Dorian  mode  the  only  one  which  is  truly  Greek." 


144  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

and  moral  institution ;  as  with  the  drum  and  the  bu- 
gle-call in  our  regiments,  it  regulates  marches  and 
parades ;  there  are  hereditary  flute-players  similar  to 
the  bagpipers  of  the  Scottish  clans.*  The  dance  it- 
self is  a  drill  or  a  procession.  Boys,  after  five  years 
of  age,  are  instructed  in  the  Pyrrhica,  a  pantomime 
of  armed  combatants,  who  imitate  manoeuvres  of  de- 
fense and  attack,  every  attitude  taken  and  every  move- 
ment made  with  a  view  to  strike,  ward  ofi",  draw  back, 
spring  forward,  stoop,  bend  the  bow  and  launch  the 
pike.  There  is  another  named  "  anapale,"  in  which 
young  boys  simulate  wrestling  and  the  pancratiimi. 
Tlaere  are  others  for  young  men ;  others  for  young 
girls,  in  which  there  is  violent  jumping,  "  leaps  of  the 
stag,"  and  headlong  races  where, "  like  colts  and  with 
streaming  hair,  they  make  the  dust  fly."t  The  prin- 
cipal ones,  however,  are  the  gymnopsedia,  grand  re- 
views, in  which  the  whole  nation  figures  distributed  in 
choruses.  That  of  the  old  men  sang,  "  Once  were  we 
young  men  filled  with  strength ;"  that  of  the  young 
men  responded,  "  We  of  to-day  are  thus  endowed ; 

*  See  the  "  Fair  Maid  of  Perth,' '  by  Walter  Scott ;  and  the  combat  of 
the  Clan  Clhele  and  Clan  Chattan 
t  Aristophanes. 


ART  m   GREECE.  145 

let  him  who  is  so  disposed  make  ti'ial  of  us ;"  that  of 
the  ichildren  added ;  "  And  we,  at  some  future  day, 
will  be  still  more  valiant."*  All,  from  infancy,  had 
learnt  and  rehearsed  the  step,  the  evolutions,  the  tone 
and  the  action ;  nowhere  did  choral  poesy  form  vast- 
er and  better  regulated  ensembles.  If  nowadays  we 
would  find  a  spectacle  very  remotely  resembling  this, 
but  still  analogous,  St.  Cyr,  with  its  parades  and 
drills  and,  still  better,  the  military  gymnastic  school, 
where  soldiers  learn  to  sing  in  chorus,  might  perhaps, 
suffice. 

There  is  nothing  surprising  in  a  city  of  this  kind 

*  CnORCS  OF  OLD  MEJT. 

We  are  old  and  feeble  now ; 

Feeble  hands  to  age  belong ; 
But  when  o'er  our  yoathful  brow 

Fell  the  dark  hair,  wo  were  strong. 

CHORUS  OP  VOTING  MEN. 
Though  your  youthful  strength  departs 

With  your  children  it  endures ; 
In  our  arms  and  in  our  hearts 

Lives  the  valor  that  was  yours. 

CnOKUS  OF  BOYS. 
We  shall  soon  that  strength  attain ; 

Deeds  like  yours  shall  make  us  known. 
And  the  glory  we  shall  gain 
Haply  may  surpass  your  own. 

Bbtant  :  translated  from  the  Greek. 


146  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

organizing  and  perfecting  gymnastics.  At  the  cost 
of  his  life  a  Spartan  had  to  be  equal  to  ten  Helots ; 
as  he  was  hoplite  and  foot-soldier  and  had  to  fight 
man  to  man,  in  line  and  resolutely,  a  perfect  educa- 
tion consisted  of  that  which  formed  the  most  agile 
and  most  robust  gladiator.  In  order  tD  obtain  this  it 
began  previous  to  birth ;  quite  the  opposite  of  other 
Greeks  the  Spartans  not  only  prepared  the  male  but 
likewise  the  female,  in  order  that  the  child  which  in- 
herited both  bloods  should  receive  courage  and  vig- 
or from  his  mother  as  well  as  from  his  father.*  Girls 
have  their  gymnasia  and  are  exercised  like  boys, 
niide  or  in  a  short  tunic,  in  running,  leaping,  and 
throwing  the  discus  and  lance ;  they  have  their  own 
choruses ;  they  figure  in  the  gymnopaedia  along  with 
the  men.  Aristophanes,  with  a  tinge  of  Athenian 
raillery,  admires  their  fresh  carnation,  their  blooming 
health  and  their  somewhat  brutal  vigor,  f  The  law, 
moreover,  fixes  the  age  of  marriages,  and  allots  the 
most  favorable  time  and  circumstances  for  generating 
good  progeny.     There  is  some  chance  for  parents  of 

*  Xenophoo,  The  Lacedemonian  Republic 
+  The  part  of  Lampito  in  the  "Lysistrata." 


ART  m   GREECE.  147 

this  description  producing  strong  and  handsome 
children ;  it  is  the  system  of  horse-trainers,  and  is  ful- 
ly carried  out,  since  all  defective  products  are  reject- 
ed.— As  soon  as  the  infant  begins  to  walk  they  not 
only  harden  and  train  it,  but  again  they  methodical- 
ly render  it  supple  and  powerful ;  Xenophon  says 
that  they  alone  among  the  Greeks  exercised  equally 
all  parts  of  the  body,  the  neck,  the  arms,  the  shoul- 
ders, the  legs  and,  not  merely  in  youth  but  through- 
out life  and  every  day,  and  in  camp  twice  a  day. 
The  effect  of  this  discipline  is  soon  apparent.  "  The 
Spartans,"  says  Xenophon,  "  are  the  healthiest  of  all 
the  Greeks,  and  among  them  are  found  the  finest 
men  and  the  handsomest  women  in  Greece."  They 
overcame  the  Messenians  who  fought  with  the  disor- 
der and  impetuosity  of  Homeric  times ;  they  became 
the  moderators  and  chiefs  of  Greece,  and  at  the  time 
of  the  Median  wars  their  ascendancy  was  so  well  es- 
tablifihed  that,  not  only  on  land  but  at  sea,  when 
they  had  scarcely  any  vessels,  all  the  Greeks,  and 
even  the  Athenians,  received  generals  from  them 
without  a  murmur. 

When  a  people  becomes  first  in  statesmanship 


H8  THE  PHILOSOPEY  OF 

and  in  war  its  neighbors  closely  or  remotely  imitate 
the  institutions  that  have  given  it  the  supremacy. 
The  Greeks  gradually  borrow  from  the  Spartans, 
and,  in  general,  from  the  Dorians,  the  important  char- 
acteristics of  their  habits,  regime  and  art ;  the  Dori- 
an harmony,  the  exalted  choral  poesy,  many  of  the 
ceremonies  of  the  dance,  the  style  of  architecture, 
the  simpler  and  more  manly  dress,  the  more  rigid 
military  discipline,  the  complete  nudity  of  the  ath- 
lete, gymnastics  worked  up  into  a  system.  Many 
of  the  terms  of  military  art,  of  music  and  of  the  pa- 
lestra, are  of  Doric  origin  or  belong  to  the  Dorian 
dialect.  Already  in  the  ninth  century  (B.C.)  the 
growing  importance  of  gymnastics  had  shown  itself 
in  the  restoration  of  games,  which  had  been  inter- 
rupted, while  innumerable  facts  show,  evidently,  that 
they  annually  became  more  popular.  Those  of 
Olympia  in  776  serve  as  an  era  and  a  chronological 
starting-point  for  a  series  of  years.  During  the  two 
subsequent  centuries  those  of  Pytho,  of  the  Corin- 
thian Isthmus  and  of  Nemea  are  established.  They 
are  at  first  confined  to  the  simple  race  of  the  stadi- 
um ;  to  this  is  added  in  succession  the  double  race  of 


AET  ZZV   GREECE.  149 

the  stadium,  wrestling,  the  pentathlon,  pugilism,  the 
chariot  race,  the  pancratium  and  the  horse  race ; 
and  next,  for  children,  the  foot  race,  wrestling,  the 
pancratium,  boxing,  and  other  games,  in  all  twenty- 
four  exercises.  Lacedemonian  customs  overcome 
Homeric  traditions;  the  victor  no  longer  obtains 
some  prized  object  but  a  simple  crown  of  leaves ;  he 
ceases  to  wear  the  ancient  girdle,  and,  at  the  four- 
teenth Olympiad,  strips  himself  entirely.  The 
names  of  the  victors  show  that  they  come  from  all 
parts  of  Greece,  from  Magna  Grsecia,  the  islands 
and  the  most  distant  colonies.  Henceforth  there  is 
no  city  without  its  gymnasium;  it  is  one  of  the  signs 
by  which  we  recognize  a  Grecian  town.*  The  first 
one  at  Athens  dates  frotii  about  the  year  700.  Un- 
der Solon  there  were  already  three  large  public 
gymnasia  and  a  number  of  smaller  ones.  The  youth 
of  sixteen  or  eighteen  years  passed  his  hours  there 
as  in  a  lycee  of  day-scholars  arranged,  not  for  the 
culture  of  the  mind,  but  for  the  perfect  development 
of  the  body.  The  study  of  grammar  and  music 
seems  indeed  to  have  ceased  in  order  that  the  young 
*  An  exprcseion  by  Pausanias, 


150  TUE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

man  might  enter  a  higher  and  more  special  class. 
The  gymnasium  consisted  of  a  great  square  with 
porticoes  and  avenues  of  plane-trees,  generally  near  a 
fountain  or  a  stream,  and  decorated  with  numerous 
statues  of  gods  and  crowned  athletes.  It  had  its 
master,  its  momtor^  its  special  tutors  and  its  f^te  in 
honor  of  Hermes ;  the  pupils  had  a  playspell  in  the 
intervals  between  the  exercises ;  citizens  visited  it 
when  they  pleased;  there  were  numerous  seats 
around  the  race  course ;  people  came  there  to  prom- 
enade and  to  look  at  the  young  folks ;  it  was  a  place 
for  gossip ;  philosophy  was  born  there  at  a  later  pe- 
riod. In  this  school,  which  resulted  in  a  steady  com- 
petition, emulation  led  to  excesses  and  prodigies; 
men  were  seen  exercising  there  their  whole  life. 
The  laws  of  the  Games  required  those  ^\\o  entered 
the  arena  to  swear  that  they  had  exercised  at  least 
ten  consecutive  months  without  interruption  and 
with  the  greatest  care.  But  the  men  do  much  more 
than  this;  the  impulse  lasts  for  entire  years  and 
even  into  maturity ;  they  follow  a  regimen ;  they  eat 
a  great  deal  and  at  certain  hours ;  they  harden  their 
muscles  by  using  the  strigil  and  cold  water;  they 


ART  IN   GREECE.  151 

abstain  from  pleasures  and  excitements ;  they  con- 
demn themselves  to  continence.  Some  among  them 
renew  the  exploits  of  fabulous  heroes.  Milo,  it  is 
said,  bore  a  bull  on  his  shoulders,  and  seizing  the 
rear  of  a  harnessed  chariot,  stopped  its  advance. 
An  inscription  placed  beneath  the  statue  of  Phayllos, 
the  Ct  otonian,  stated  that  he  leaped  across  a  space 
fifty-five  feet  in  width  and  cast  the  discus,  weighing 
eight  pounds,  ninety-five  feet.  Among  Pindar's  ath- 
letes there  are  some  who  are  giants. 

You  will  observe  that,  in  the  Greek  civilization, 
these  admirable  bodies  are  not  rarities,  so  many 
products  of  luxury,  and,  as  nowadays,  ■  useless  pop- 
pies in  a  field  of  grain;  on  the  contrary,  we  must 
liken  them  to  the  tallest  stems  of  a  magnificent 
harvest.  They  are  a  necessity  of  the  State  and  a 
demand  of  society.  The  Hercules  I  have  cited 
were  not  merely  for  parade  purposes.  Milo  led  his 
fellow-citizens  to  combat,  and  Phayllos  was  the 
chief  of  the  Crotonians  who  came  to  aid  the 
Greeks  against  the  Medes.  A  general  of  those  days 
was  not  a  strategist  with  a  map  and  spy-glass  occupy- 
ing an  elevation ;   he   fought,  pike   in  hand,  at  the 


152  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

head  of  his  forces,  body  to  body,  and  as  a  soldier. 
Miltiades,  Aristides,  Pericles,  and  at  a  much  later 
period,  even  Agesilaus,  Pelopidas  and  Pyrrhus  use 
their  arms,  and  not  merely  their  intellect,  to  strike, 
parry  and  assault,  on  foot  and  on  horseback,  in  the 
thickest  of  the  fight;  Epaminondas,  a  statesman  and 
philosopher,  being  mortally  wounded,  consoles  him- 
self like  a  simple  hoplite  for  having  saved  hjs  shield- 
A  victor  at  the  penthalon,  Aratus,  and  the  last  Gre- 
cian leader,  found  his  advantage  in  his  agility  and 
strength  on  scaling  walls  and  in  surprises.  Alexan- 
der, at  the  Granicus,  charged  like  a  hussar  and  was 
the  first  to  spring,  like  a  tumbler,  into  a  city  of 
the  Oxydracae.  A  bodily  and  personal  mode 
of  warfare  like  this  requires  the  first  citizens,  and 
even    princes,  to   be    complete   athletes.      Add  to 

**  the  exigencies  of  danger  the  stimulants  of  festivals. 

-  Ceremonies,  like  battles,  demanded  trained  bodies ; 
no  one  could  figure  in  the  choruses^  without  having 
passed  through  the  gymnasia.  I  have  stated  how 
the  poet  Sophocles  danced  the  p£ean  naked  after  the 
victory  of  Salamis  ;  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century 
the   same   customs   still   subsisted.     Alexander,  on 


ART  ZZV^   GBEEGK  153 

reaching  the  Troad,  threw  aside  his  clothes  that  he 
and  his  companions  might  honor  Achilles  by  racing 
around  the  pillar  which  marked  the  hero's  grave. 
A  little  farther  on,  at  Phas61is,  on  seeing  a  statue  of 
the  philosopher  Theodectes  in  the  public  square,  he 
returned  after  his  repast  to  dance  around  it  and 
cover  it  with  crowns.  To  provide  for  tastes  and 
necessities  of  this  sort,  the  gymnasium  was  the  only 
school.  It  resembles  the  academies  of  our  later  cen- 
turies, to  which  all  young  nobles  resorted  to  learn 
fencing,  dancing  and  riding.  Free  citizens  were  the 
nobles  of  antiquity ;  there  was,  consequently,  no  free 
citizen  who  had  not  frequented  the  gymnasium ;  on 
this  condition  only  could  a  man  be  well  educated ; 
otherwise  he  sank  to  the  class  of  tradesmen  and  peo- 
ple of  a  low  origin.  Plato,  Chrysippus  and  the  poet 
Timocreon  were  at  one  time  athletes;  Pythagoras 
passed  for  having  taken  the  prize  for  boxing ;  Eurip- 
ides was  crowned  as  an  athlete  at  the  Eleusinian 
games.  Cleisthenes,  tyrant  of  Sicyon,  entertaining 
the  suitors  of  his  daughter,  provided  them  with  an 
exercising  ground,  "  in  order  that,"  says  Herodotus, 
"  he  might  test  their  race  and  education."    The  body, 


154  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

in  fine,  preserved  to  the  end  the  traces  of  its  gym- 
nastic or  servile  education ;  it  could  be  appreciated  at 
a  glance,  through  its  bearing,  gait,  action  and  mode 
of  dress,  the  same  as,  formerly,  the  gentleman,  polish- 
ed and  ennobled  by  the  academies,  could  be  distin- 
guished from  the  rustic  clown  or  the  impoverished 
laborer. 

Even  when  nude  and  motionless,  the  body  testi- 
fied to  its  exercise  by  the  beauty  of  its  forms.  The 
skin,  embrowned  and  rendered  firm  by  the  sun,  oil, 
dust,  the  strigil  and  cold  baths,  did  not  seem  uncov- 
ered ;  it  was  accustomed  to  the  air ;  one  felt  on  look- 
ing at  it  that  it  was  in  its  element ;  it  certainly  did 
not  shiver  or  present  a  mottled  or  goose-skin  aspect ; 
it  was  a  healthy  tissue,  of  a  beautiful  tone,  indicative 
of  a  free  and  vigorous  existence.  Agesilaus,  to  en- 
courage his  soldiers,  one  day  caxised  his  Persian  pris- 
oners to  be  stripped ;  at  the  sight  of  their  soft  white 
skin  the  Greeks  broke  into  a  laugh  and  marched  on- 
ward, full  of  contempt  for  their  enemies.  The  mus- 
cles were  rendered  strong  and  supple ;  nothing  was 
neglected;  the  diverse  parts  of  the  body  balanced 
each  other ;  the  upper  section  of  the  arm,  which  is 


ART  IN   GREECE.  155 

now  so  meagre,  and  the  stiff  and  poorly-furnished 
omoplates  were  filled  out  and  formed  a  pendant  in 
proportion  with  tlie  hips  and  thighs;  the  masters, 
like  veritable  artists,  exercised  the  body  so  that  it 
might  not  only  possess  vigor,  resistance  and  speed, 
but  likewise  symmetry  and  elegance.  The  "  Dying 
Gaul,"*  which  belongs  to  the  Pergamenian  school, 
shows,  on  comparing  it  with  the  statues  of  athletes, 
the  distance  which  separates  a  rude  from  a  cultivated 
body ;  on  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  hair  scattered  in 
coarse  meshes  like  a  mane,  a  peasant's  feet  and  hands, 
a  thick  skin,  inflexible  muscles,  sharp  elbows,  swollen 
veins,  angular  contours,  and  harsh  lines — nothing 
but  the  animal  body  of  a  robust  savage;  on  the 
other  hand,  all  the  forms  ennobled ;  at  first  the  heel 
flabby  and  weak,f  now  enclosed  in  a  clean  oval ;  at 
first  the  foot  too  much  displayed  and  betraying  its 
simian  oi-igin,  now  arched  and  more  elastic  for  the 
leap;  at  first  the  knee-pan  articulations  and  entire 
skeleton  prominent,  now  half  effaced  and  simply  in- 

*  The  author  thus  designates  the  statue  commonly  known  under  the 
title  of  the  "  Dying  Gladiator."    Tr. 

t  See  the  small  bronze  archaic  Apollo  in  the  Louvre,  also  the  Jigine- 
tan  statues.  , 


156  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

clicated  ;  at  first  the  line  of  the  shoulders  horizontal 
and  hard,  now  inclining  and  softened — everywhere 
the  hannony  of  parts  which  continue  and  flow  into 
each  other,  the  youth  and  freshness  of  a  fluid  exist- 
ence as  natural  and  as  simple  as  that  of  a  tree  or  a 
flower.  Numerous  passages  could  be  pointed  out  in 
"  Menexenus,"  the  "  Rivals"  and  the  "  Charmides"  of 
Plato,  which  seize  some  one  of  these  postures  on  the 
wing ;  a  young  man  thus  reared  uses  his  limbs  well 
and  naturally;  he  knows  how  to  bend  his  body, 
stand  erect,  rest  with  his  shoulder  against  a  column, 
and,  in  all  these  attitudes,  remain  as  beautiful  as  a 
statue ;  the  same  as  a  gentleman,  before  the  Revolu- 
tion, had,  when  bowing,  taking  smiff  or  listening,  the 
cavalier  grace  and  ease  observable  in  old  portraits 
and  in  engravings.  It  was  not  the  courtier,  however, 
that  was  apparent  in  the  ways,  action  and  pose  of  the 
Greek,  but  the  man  of  the  palaestra.  Plato  depicts  him 
as  hereditary  gymnastics  fashioned  him  among  a  se- 
lect race :  "  Charmides,  I  think  that  you  ought  to 
excel  others  in  all  good  qualities ;  for,  if  I  am  not  mis- 
taken, there  is  no  one  present  who  could  easily  point 
out  ten  Athenian  houses,  the  alliance  of  which  was 


ART  m  GREECE.  157 

likely  to  produce  a  better  or  nobler  son  than  tlie  two 
from  which  you  are  sprung.  There  is  your  father's 
house,  which  is  descended  from  Critias,  the  son  of 
Dropidas,  whose  family  has  been  commemorated  in 
the  panegyrical  verses  of  Anacreon,  Solon,  and 
many  other  poets  as  famous  for  beauty  and  virtue 
and  all  other  high  fortune :  and  your  mother's  house 
is  equally  distinguished;  for  your  maternal  uncle 
Pyrilami^es,  never  met  with  his  equal  in  Persia  at  the 
court  of  the  great  king  or  on  the  whole  continent  in 
all  the  places  to  which  he  went  as  ambassador,  for 
stature  and  beauty ;  that  whole  family  is  not  a  whit 
inferior  to  the  other.  Having  such  ancestry  you 
ought  to  be  first  in  all  things,  and  as  far  as  I  can  see, 
sweet  son  of  Glaucon,  your  outward  form  is  no  dis- 
honor to  them."* 

In  this  scene,  which  takes  us  back  much  farther 
than  its  date,  even  to  the  best  period  of  the  nude 
form,  all  is  precious  and  significant.  We  find  in  it 
the  traditions  of  the  blood,  the  result  of  education, 
the  popular  and  universal  taste  for  beauty,  all  the 
original  sources   of  perfect   sculpture.     Homer  had 

*  The  Dialogues  of  Plato,  "  Charmides,"  translated  toy  Jowett. 


158  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

mentioned  Achilles  and  Kerens  as  the  most  beauti- 
ful among  the  Greeks  assembled  against  Troy.;  He- 
rodotus named  Callicrates,  the  Spartan,  as  the  hand- 
somest of  the  Greeks  in  arms  against  Mardonius. 
All  the  fetes  of  the  gods  and  all  great  ceremonies 
brought  together  competitors  in  beauty.  The  finest 
old  men  of  Athens  were  selected  to  carry  branches 
in  the  Panathenaic  procession,  and  the  handsomest 
men  at  Elis  to  bear  the  offerings  to  the  goddess. 
At  Sparta,  in  the  gymnopadia,  the  generals  and 
prominent  men  whose  figure  and  external  nobility 
wiere  not  sufficiently  marked  were  consigned  to  the 
lower  ranks  in  the  choral  defile.  The  Lacedemoni- 
ans, according  to  Theophrastus,  imposed  a  fine  on 
their  king,  Archidamus,  because  he  married  a  woman 
of  short  stature,  pretending  that  she  would  give  them 
kinglets  and  not  kings.  Pausanias  found  competi- 
tions of  beauty  in  Arcadia  in  which  women  were  ri- 
vals, and  which  had  lasted  for  nine  centuries.  A 
Persian,  related  to  Xerxes,  and  a  grandee  of  his 
army,  dying  at  Achantus,  the  inhabitants  sacrificed 
to  him  as  a  hero.  The  Segestans  had  erected  a 
small  temple  over  the  grave  of  Philip,  a  Crotonian 


ART  m  GREECE.  159 

refugee  among  them  and  a  victor  in  the  Olympic 
games,  the  most  beautiful  Greek  of  his  day,  and  to 
whom  duiing  the  lifetime  of  Herodotus,  sacrifices 
were  still  offered.  Such  is  the  sentiment  which  edu- 
cation had  nourished  and  which  in  its  turn,  reacting 
thereon,  made  the  formation  of  "beauty  its  end.  Tlie 
race,  certainly,  was  a  fine  one,  but  it  was  rendered 
still  finer  through  system  ;  will  had  improved  nature, 
and  the  statuary  set  about  finishing  what  nature, 
even  cultivated,  only  half  completed. 

We  have  thus  seen  during  two  centuries  the  two 
institutions  which  foim  the  human  body,,  the  orches- 
tral and  gymnastic  systems,  born,  developed,  and 
diffused  around  the  centres  of  their  origin ;  spreading 
throughout  the  Greek  world,  furnishing  the  instru- 
ments of  war,  the  decorations  of  worship,  the  era  of 
chronology;  presenting  corporeal  perfection  as  the 
principal  aim  of  human  life  and  pushing  admiration 
of  completed  form  even  to  vice.*  Slowly,  by  de- 
grees and  at  intervals,  the  art  which  fashions  the 
statue  of  metal,  wood,  ivory  or  marble,  accompanies 

*  Grecian  vice,  unkno\vii  in  th^  time  of  Homer,  begins,  according  to 
all  appearances,  with  the  institution  of  gymnasia.  See  Becker,  "  Chari- 
cles"  (Excnrsus). 


160  TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

* 

the  education  whicli  fasliions  the  living  statue.     It 

does  not  progress  at  the  same  pace ;  although  con- 
temporary, it  remains  for  these  two  centuries  inferior 
and  simply  imitative.  The  Greeks  were  concerned 
about  truth  before  they  were  concerned  about  copy- 
ing it ;  they  were  interested  in  veritable  bodies  be- 
fore being  interested  in  simulated  bodies ;  they  de- 
voted themselves  to  forming  a  chorus  before  at- 
tempting to  sculpture  a  chorister.  The  physical  or 
moral  model  always  precedes  the  work  which  repre- 
sents it ;  but  it  is  only  slightly  in  advance ;  it  is  ne- 
cessary that  it  be  still  present  in  all  memories  the  mo- 
ment that  the  work  is  done.  Art  is  an  expanded 
and  harmonious  echo;  it  acquires  its  fulness  and 
completeness  when  the  life,  of  which  it  is  the  echo, 
begins  to  decline.  Such  is  the  case  with  Greek  stat- 
uary ;  it  becomes  adult  just  at  the  moment  the  lyric 
age  ends — in  the  period  of  fifty  years  following  the 
battle  of  Salamis,  when,  along  with  prose,  the  dra- 
ma and  the  first  researches  in  philosophy,  a  new  cul- 
ture begins.  We  see  art  suddenly  passing  from  ex- 
act imitation  to  beautiful  invention.  Aristocles,  the 
-^ginetan  sculptors,  Onatas,  Canachus,  Pythagoras 


ART  IN  GREECE.  161 

of  Rhegium,  Calamis  and  Ageladas  still  closely- 
copied  the  real  foiin  as  Verocchio,  Pollaiolo,  Ghir- 
landaijo,  Fra  Filippo  and  Perugino  himself;  but  in 
the  hands  of  their  pupils,  Myro,  Polycleitus  and 
Phidias  the  ideal  form  is  set  free  as  in  the  hands  of 
Leonardo,  Michael  Angelo  and  Raphael. 


162  THE  PEIL0S0PH7  OF 


m 

It  is  not  merely  men,  the  most  beautifal  of  all, 
that  Greek  statuary  has  produced;  it  has  likewise 
produced  gods,  and,  in  the  united  judgment  of  an- 
tiquity, its  gods  were  its  masterpieces.  To  the  pro- 
found sentiment  of  corporeal  and  athletic  perfection 
was  added,  with  the  public  and  with  the  masters,  an 
original  religious  sentiment,  a  conception  of  the 
world  now  lost,  a  peculiar  mode  of  apprehending, 
venerating  and  adoring  natural  and  divine  powers. 
One  must  figure  to  himself  this  particular  class  of 
emotions  and  kind  of  faith  if  one  would  penetrate 
a  little  deeper  into  the  soul  and  genius  of  Polycleitus, 
Agoracritus  or  of  Phidias. 

It  is  sufficient  to  read  Herodotus*  to  see  how 
lively  faith  still  was  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  centu- 
ry.    Not  only  is  Herodotus  pious,  so  devout  even  as 

*  Herodotus  was  still  living  at  the  epoch  of  the  Pelopoimesiaii  war. 
He  alludes  to  it  in  Book  VII.  137,  and  in  Book  IX.  73. 


^       ART  IN  GREECE.  163 

not  to  presume  to  give  utterance  to  certain  sacred 
names,  or  reveal  certain  legends,  but  again  the  entire 
nation  brings  to  its  worship  the  impassioned  and 
grandiose  seriousness  simultaneously  expressed  in 
the  poetry  of  JSschylus  and  Pindar.  The  gods  are 
living  and  present ;  they  speak ;  they  have  been  seen 
like  the  Virgin  and  the  saints  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury.— The  heralds  of  Xerxes  having  been  slain  by 
the  Spartans,  the  entrails  of  the  victims  become  un- 
favorable, because  the  murder  offended  the  dead 
Talthybios,  Agamemnon's  glorious  herald,  whom  the 
Spartans  worshipped.  In  order  to  appease  him  two 
rich  and  noble  citizens  go  to  Asia  and  offer  them- 
selves to  Xerxes. — On  the  arrival  of  the  Persians  the 
cities  consult  the  oracle ;  the  Athenians  are  ordered 
to  summon  their  son-in-law  to  their  aid ;  they  remem- 
ber that  Boreas  carried  off  Orythia,  the  daughter  of 
Erectheus,  their  first  ancestor,  and  they  erect  a  chap- 
el to  him  near  the  Hyssus.  At  Delphi  the  god  de- 
clares that  he  will  defend  himself;  thunder-bolts  fall 
on  the  barbarians,  rocks  fall  and  crush  them,  whilst 
from  the  temple  of  Pallas  Pronea  issue  voices  and 
war-cries,  and  two  heroes  of  the  country  of  superhu- 


164  THE  PHILOSOPHT  OF  ^ 

man  stature,  Pliylacos  and  Autonoos,  succeed  in  put- 
ting the  terrified  Persians  to  flight. — Before  the  bat- 
tle of  Salamis  the  Athenians  import  from  ^geria 
the  statues  of  the  ^acides  to  combat  with  them. 
During  the  fight  some  travellers  near  Eleusis  see  a 
great  cloud  of  dust  and  hear  the  voice  of  the  mysti- 
cal lacchus  approaching  to  aid  the  Grecians.  After 
the  battle  they  offer  the  gods,  as  first-fruits,  three 
captive  ships ;  one  of  them  is  for  Ajax,  while  they  de- 
duct from  the  booty  the  money  required  for  a  statue 
of  him  twelve  cubits  high  at  Delphi — I  should  never 
stop  if  I  were  to  enumerate  all  the  evidences  of  pub- 
lic piety ;  it  was  still  fervid  among  the  people  fifty 
years  later.  "  Diopeithes,"  says  Plutarch,  "  passed  a 
law  directing  those  who  did  not  recognize  the  exist- 
ence of  the  gods  or  who  put  forth  new  doctrines  on 
celestial  phenomena  to  be  denounced."  Aspasia, 
Anaxagoras,  and  Euripides  were  annoyed  or  accused, 
Alcibiades  condemned  to  death,  and  Socrates  put  to 
death  for  the  assumed  or  established  crime  of  impi- 
ety; popular  indignation  proved  terrible  against 
those  who  had  counterfeited  or  violated  the  mysteries 
of  Hermes.    We  see  unquestionably  in  these  details, 


ART  IN  GREECE.  165 

along  with  the  persistency  of  the  antique  faith,  the 
advent  of  free  thought ;  there  was  around  Pericles, 
as  around  Lorenzo  de  Medici,  a  small  cluster  of  phi- 
losophers and  dialecticians;  Phidias,  like  Michael 
Angelo  at  a  later  period,  was  admitted  among  them. 
But  in  both  epochs,  legend  and  tradition  filled  and 
had  supreme  control  of  the  imagination  and  conduct. 
When  the  echo  of  philosophic  discourse  reached  the 
soul  filled  with  picturesque  forms  and  made  it  vibrate, 
it  was  to  aggrandize  and  purify  divine  forms.  The 
new  wisdom  did  not  destroy  religion ;  she  interpret- 
ed it,  she  brought  it  back  to  its  foundation,  to  the 
poetic  sentiment  of  natural  forces.  The  grandiose 
conceptions  of  early  physicists  left  the  world  as  ani- 
mated and  rendered  it  more  august.  It  is  owing, 
perhaps,  to  Phidias  having  heard  Anaxagoras  dis- 
course on  the  voiJs  that  he  conceived  his  Jupiter,  his 
Pallas,  his  heavenly  Venus,  and  completed,  as  the 
Greeks  said,  the  majesty  of  the  gods. 

In  order  to  possess  the  sentiment  of  the  divine  it 
is  necessary  to  be  capable  of  distinguishing,  through 
the  precise  form  of  the  legendary  god,  the  great,  per- 
manent and  general  forces  of  which  it  is  the  issue. 


:iQQ  THE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

One  remains  a  cold  and  prejudiced  idolater  if,  be- 
yond the  personal  form,  he  does  not  detect,  in  a  sort 
of  half-light,  the  physical  or  moral  power  of  which 
the  figure  is  the  symbol.  This  was  still  perceptible  in 
the  time  of  Cimon  and  Pericles.  Studies  in  compar- 
ative mythology  have  recently  shown  that  Grecian 
myths,  related  to  Sanscrit  myths,  originally  express- 
ed the  play  of  natural  forces  only,  and  that  lan- 
guage had  gradually  formed  divinities  from  the  diver- 
sity, fecundity  and  beauty  of  physical  elements  and 
phenomena.  Polytheism,  fundamentally,  is  the  senti- 
ment of  animated,  immortal  and  creative  nature, 
and  this  sentiment  lasts  for  eternity.  The  divine  im- 
pregnated all  things :  these  were  invoked ;  often  in 
-iEschylus  and  Sophocles  do  we  see  man  addressing 
tlie  elements  as  if  they  were  sacred  beings  with 
whom  he  is  associated  to  conduct  the  great  chorus 
of  life.  Philoctetes,  on  his  departure,  salutes  "  ye 
watery  nymphs  of  the  meadows,  and  thou  manly 
roar  of  ocean  dashing  onwards.  Farewell,  thou  sea- 
girt plain  of  Lemnos,  and  waft  me  safely  with  fair 
voyage  thither,  whither  mighty  fate  conveys  me."* 

*  The  Tragedies  of  Sopbocles :  Oxford  translation. 


ART  IN   GBEEGE.  167 

Prometheus,  bound  to  his  crag,  calls  on  all  the 
mighty  beings  who  people  space : — "  O  divine  aether 
and  ye  swift-winged  breezes,  and  ye  fountains  of  riv- 
ers, and  countless  dimpling  of  the  waves  of  the  deep ; 
and  thou  Earth,  mother  of  all, — and  to  the  all- seeing 
orb  of  the  Sun,  I  appeal  1  Look  upon  me  what 
treatment  I,  a  God,  am  enduring  at  the  hand  of  the 
Gods  !"* 

The  spectators  simply  let  lyric  emotion  lead 
them  on  in  order  to  obtain  primitive  metaphors, 
which,  without  being  conscious  of  it,  were  the  germs 
of  their  faith.  "  The  serene  sky,"  says  Aphrodite, 
in  one  of  the  lost  pieces  of  iEschylus,  "  delights 
to  embrace  the  Earth,  and  Love  espouses  her ;  the 
rain  which  falls  from  the  life-giving  Sky  fecundates 
the  Earth  who  then  brings  forth  for  mortals  pastur- 
age for  cattle  and  the  corn  of  Demeter."  To  com- 
prehend this  language  we  have  only  to  leave  behind 
us  our  artificial  towns  and  formal  culture.  The  soli- 
tary wanderer  among  mountains  or  by  the  seaside 
who  surrenders  himself  wholly  to  the  aspects  of  an 
intact  nature  soon  holds  communion  with  her ;  she 

♦  ^schylus :  translated  by  Buddey.    Bolm'B  Claseical  Library. 


168  TEE  PHILOSOPHY   OF 

becomes  animated  for  him  like  a  physiognomy; 
mountains,  threatening  and  motionless,  become  bald- 
headed  giants  or  crouching  monsters;  the  waves 
which  toss  and  gleam  become  laughing  and  playful 
, creatures;  the  grand  silent  pines  resemble  serious 
virgins;  and  on  contemplating  the  radiant  blue 
southern  sea,  adorned  as  if  for  a  festival,  wearing 
the  universal  smile  of  which  ^schylus  speaks,  he  is 
at  once  led,  in  expressing  the  voluptuous  beauty 
whose  infinity  penetrates  and  surrounds  him,  to 
name  that  goddess  born  of  sea-foam  who,  rising 
above  the  waves,  comes  to  ravish  the  hearts  of  mor- 
tals and  of  gods. 

When  a  people  is  conscious  of  the  divine  life  of 
natural  objects  it  has  no  trouble  in  distinguishing 
the  natural  origin  of  divine  personages.  In  the 
golden  centuries  of  statuary  this  underlying  condi- 
tion of  things  still  peered  out  beneath  the  human 
and  definite  figure  by  which  legend  translated  it. 
Certain  divinities,  especially  those  of  running 
streams,  mountains  and  forests,  have  always  remain- 
ed transparent.  The  naiad  or  the  oread  was  simply 
a  young  girl  like  her  we  see  seated  on  a  rock  in  the 


AMT  IJ^  GREECE.  169 

metopes  of  Olympia,* — at  least  the  figurative  and 
sculptural  imagination  so  expressed  it :  but  in  giv- 
ing it  a  name  people  detected  the  mysterious  gravi- 
ty of  the  calm  forest  or  the  coolness  of  the  spouting 
fountain.  In  Homer,  whose  poems  formed  the  Bi- 
ble of  the  Greek,  the  shipwrecked  Ulysses,  after 
swimming  a  couple  of  days, 

Had  reached  the  month 

Of  a  soft  flowing  river 

He  felt 

The  current's  flow  and  thus  devoutly  prayed ; 
"Hear  me,  oh  sovereign  power,  whoe'er  thou  art, 
To  thee,  the  long  desired,  I  come.    I  seek 
Escape  from  Neptune's  threatenings  on  the  sea; 

To  thy  stream  I  come 

And  to  thy  knees  from  many  a  hardship  past 
Oh  thou  that  here  art  ruler,  I  declare 
Myself  thy  suppliant.    Be  thou  merciful." 
He  ceased ;  the  river  stayed  his  current,  checked 
The  billows,  smoothed  them  to  a  calm,  and  gave 
The  swimmer  a  safe  landing  at  liis  mouth  1 

It  is  evident  that  the  divinity  here  is  not  a  bearded 
personage  concealed  in  a  cavern,  but  the  flowing 
river  itself,  the  great  tranquil  and  hospitable  current. 
Likewise  the  river,  angered  at  Achilles : 

*  In  the  Louvre. 


170  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

" Spake,  and  wrathfully  he  rose  against 

Achilles, — rose  with  tarbid  waves,  and  noise,     - 
And  foam,  and  blood,  and  bodies  of  the  dead. 
One  purple  billow  of  the  Jove-born  stream 
Swelled  high  and  whelmed  Achilles.    Juno  saw 
And  trembled  lest  the  hero  should  be  whirled 
Downward  by  the  great  river,  and  in  haste 
She  called  to  Vulcan,  her  beloved  son ; — 

Then  the  god 

Seized  on  the  river  with  his  glittering  fires. 
The  elms,  the  willows,  and  the  tamarisks 
Fell,  scorched  to  cinders,  and  the  lotus-herbs, 
Kushes,  and  reeds  that  richly  fringed  the  banks 
Of  that  fair-flowing  current  were  consumed. 
The  eels  and  fishes,  that  were  wont  to  glide 
Hither  and  thither  through  the  pleasant  depths 
And  eddies,  languished  in  the  fiery  breath 
Of  Vulcan,  mighty  artisan.    The  strength 
Of  the  great  river  withered,  and  h^e  spake : — 
"  O  Vulcan,  there  is  none  of  all  the  gods 
Who  may  contend  with  thee.    I  combat  not 
With  fires  like  thine.    Cease  then."* 

Six  centuries  later,  Alexander,  embarking  on  the 
Hydaspes  and  standing  on  the  prow,  offered  libations 
to  the  river,  to  the  other  river  its  sister,  and  to  the 
Indus  who  received  both  and  who  was  about  to  bear 
him.  To  a  simple  and  healthy  mind,  a  river,  especi- 
ally if  it  is  unknown,  is  in  itself  a  divine  power;  man, 
before  it,  feels  himself  in  the  presence  of  one,  eternal 

*  The  Iliad,  Book  XVI:  translated  by  W.  C.  Bryant 


ART  IN  GREECE.  171 

being,  always  active,  by  turns  supporter  and  destroy- 
er, and  with  countless  forms  and  •aspects;  an  inex- 
haustible and  regular  flow  gives  him  an  idea  of  a 
calm  and  virile  existence  but  majestic  and  superhu- 
man. In  ages  of  decadence,  in  statues  like  those  of  the 
Tiber  and  the  Nile,  ancient  sculptors  still  remember- 
ed tlie  piimitive  impressions,  the  large  torso,  the  at- 
titude of  repose,  the  vague  gaze  of  the  statue,  showing 
that,  through  the  human  form,  they  were  always 
mindful  of  and  expressing  the  magnificent,  uniform 
and  indifferent  expansion  of  the  mighty  current. 

At  other  times  the  name  disclosed  the  nature  of 
the  god.  Hestia  signifies  the  hearthstone ;  the  god- 
dess never  could  be  wholly  separated  from  the  sa- 
cred flame  which  served  as  the  nucleus  of  domestic 
life.  Demeter  signifies  the  mother  earth ;  ritualistic 
epithets  call  her  a  divinity  of  darkness,  of  the  pro- 
found and  subterranean,  the  nurse  of  the  young,  the 
bearer  of  fruits,  the  verdant.  The  sun,  in  Homer,  is 
another  god  than  Apollo,  the  moral  personage  be- 
ing confounded  in  him  wi^i  physical  light.  Numer- 
ous other  divinities,  "  Horae,"  the  Seasons,  "  Dice," 
Justice,  "Nemesis,"   Repression,   bear  their    sense 


172       •  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

along  with  their  name  into  the  soul  of  the  worship- 
per. I  will  cite  hut  one  of  these,  "  Eros,"  Love,  to 
show  how  the  Greek,  intellectually  free  and  acute, 
united  in  the  same  emotion  the  worship  of  a  divine 
personage  and  the  divination  of  a  natural  force. 
"  Love,"  says  Sophocles,  "  invincible  in  strife ;  Love, 
who  overcomest  all  powers  and  fortunes,  thou  dwell- 
est  on  the  delicate  cheeks  of  the  young  maiden ;  and 
thou  Grossest  the  sea  and  entereth  rustic  cabins,  and 
there  are  none  among  the  immortals  nor  among  pass- 
ing men  that  can  escape  thee."  A  little  later,  in  the 
hands  of  the  convivialists  of  the  Symposiun,  the  na- 
ture of  the  god  varies  according  to  diverse  interpre- 
tations of  the  title.  For  some,  since  love  signifies 
sympathy  and  concord,  Love  is  the  most  universal 
of  the  gods,  and,  as  Hesiod  has  it,  the  author  of  or- 
der and  harmony  in  the  world.  According  to  oth- 
ers he  is  the  youngest  of  the  gods,  for  age  excludes 
love :  he  is  the  most  delicate  for  he  moves  and  rests 
on  hearts,  the  tenderest  objects  and  only  on  those 
which  are  tender ;  he  is  oi^  subtle,  fluid  essence,  be- 
cause he  enters  into  souls  and  leaves  them  without, 
their  being  aware  of  it ;  he  has  the  tint  of  a  flower 


AUT  IN  GEEECE.  I73 

because  he  lives  among  perfumes  and  flowers.  Ac- 
cording to  others,  finally,  Love  being  desire  and, 
therefore,  the  lack  of  something,  is  the  child  of  Pov- 
erty— meagre,  slovenly  and  barefoot,  sleeping  in 
beautiful  starlight,  athirst  for  beauty  and  therefore 
bold,  active,  industrious,  persevering  and  a  philoso- 
pher. The  myth  revives  of  itself  and  passes  through 
more  than  a  dozen  forms  in  the  hands  of  Plato. — In 
the  hands  of  Aristophanes  we  see  the  clouds  becom- 
ing, for  a  moment,  almost  counterpart  divinities ; 
and  if,  in  the  Theogony  of  Hesiod,  we  follow  the 
half  considered,  half  involuntary  confusion  which  he 
establishes  between  divine  personages  and  physical 
elements  ;*  if  we  remark  that  he  enumerates  "  thirty 
thousand  guardian  gods  of  the  nursing  earth ;"  if  we 
remember  that  Thales,  the  first  physicist  and  the 
first  philosopher  said  every  thing  is  born  of  water, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  that  every  thing  is  full  of 
gods,  we  can  comprehend  the  profound  sentiment 
which  then  sustained  Greek  religion;  the  sublime 
emotion,  the  admiration,  the  veneration  with  which 

*  See  especially  the  generation  of  diverse  gods  in  the  Theogony. 
His  mind  throughout  floats  between  cosmology  and  mythology. 


174:  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

the  Greek  divined  the  infinite  forces  of  animated  na- 
ture under  the  images  of  his  divinities. 

All,  indeed,  were  not  incorporated  with  objects 
to  the  same  extent.  Some  there  were,  and  they  were 
the  most  popular,  which  the  more  energetic  lahor 
of  legend  had  detached  and  erected  into  distinct  per- 
sonages. The  Greek  Olympus  may  be  likened  to  an 
olive  tree  towards  the  end  of  the  summer.  The  fruit, 
a«cording  to  the  height  and  position  of  the  branches, 
is  more  or  less  advanced ;  some  of  it,  scarcely  formed, 
is  little  else  than  a  swollen  pistil  and  belongs  strictly 
to  the  tree ;  some  again,  already  ripe,  is  still  fast  to 
the  branch ;  some,  finally,  is  thoroughly  matured  and 
fallen,  and  it  requires  no  little  attention  to  recognize 
the  peduncle  which  bore  it.  So,  the  Greek  Olympus, 
according  to  the  degree  of  transformation  which  hu- 
manizes natural  forces,  presents,  in  its  different  stages, 
divinities  in  which  physical  character  prevails  over 
personal  configuration;  others  in  which  the  two 
phases  are  equal ;  others,  at  length,  in  which  the  god, 
become  human,  is  only  attached  by  a  few  threads, 
one  thread  only  being  sometimes  visible,  to  the  ele- 
mentary phenomenon  from  which  it  issues.     To  this, 


ART  IN   OHEECE.  175 

nevertheless,  it  is  attached.  Zeus,  who  in  the  Iliad 
is  the  head  of  an  imperious  family,  and  in  "  Prome- 
theus" an  usurping  and  tyrannical  king,  ever  remains, 
in  many  points,  what  he  was  at  first,  a  rainy  and 
thunder-striking  sky:  consecrated  epithets  and  an- 
cient locutions  indicate  his  original  nature ;  the 
streams  "  flow  from  him,"  "  Zeus  rains."  In  Crete 
his  name  signifies  day ;  Ennius,  at  Rome,  will  tell  you 
later  that  he  is  that  "  sublime,  glowing  brightness 
which  all  invoke  under  the  name  of  Jupiter."  We 
see  in  Aristophanes  that  for  the  peasantry,  rural  peo- 
ple, simple  minded  and  somewhat  antique,  he  is  al- 
ways Him  who  "  waters  the  ground  and  causes  the 
growth  of  the  corn."  On  being  told  by  a  sophist 
thai  there  is  no  Zeus,  they  are  surprised  and  demand 
who  it  is  that  bursts  forth  in  flashes  of  lightning  or 
descends  in  the  showers  ?  He  struck  down  the  Ti- 
tans, the  monster  Typhoes  with  a  hundred  dragons' 
heads,  the  black  exhalations  which,  born  of  the  earth, 
interlace  like  serpents  and  invade  the  celestial  cano- 
py. He  dwells  on  mountain  summits  touching 
the  heavens,  where  clouds  gather,  and  from  which 
the  thunder  descends ;  he  is  the  Zeus  of  Olympus, 


176  THE  PHILOSOPHT  OF 

the  Zeus  of  Ithome,  the  Zeus  of  Hymettus.  Like  all 
the  gods  he  is,  in  substance,  multiple,  connected  with 
various  places  in  which  man's  heart  is  most  sensible 
of  his  presence,  with  diverse  cities  and  even  diverse 
families,  which,  having  embraced  him  within  their 
horizons,  appropriated  him  to  themselves  and  sacri- 
ficed to  him.  "  I  conjure  thee,"  says  Tecmessa,  "  by 
the  Zeus  of  thy  hearthstone."  To  form  an  exact  im- 
pression of  the  religious  sentiment  of  a  Greek  we 
must  imagine  a  valley,  a  coast,  the  whole  primitive 
landscape  in  which  a  people  fixed  itself;  it  is  not  the 
firmament  in  general,  nor  the  universal  earth  which  it 
appreciates  as  divine  beings,  but  its  own  firmament 
with  its  own  horizon  of  undulating  mountains,  the 
soil  it  inhabits,  the  woods  and  the  flowing  streams  in 
the  midst  of  which  it  lives ;  it  has  its  own  Zeus,  its 
own  Poseidon,  its  own  Hera,  its  own  Apollo  the  same 
as  its  own  woodland  and  water  nymphs.  At  Rome, 
in  a  religion  which  had  better  preserved  the  primitive 
spirit,  Camillus  said ;  "  There  is  not  a  place  in  this 
city  that  is  not  impregnated  with  religion  and  which 
is  not  inhabited  by  some  divinity."  "  I  do  not  fear 
the  gods  of  your  country,  for  I  owe  them  nothing," 


ART  IN  GREECE.  177 

says  one  of  the  characters  of  ^schylus.  Pi'operly 
speaking,  the  god  is  local  ;*  he  is,  through  his  origin, 
the  country  itself;  hence  it  is  that  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Greek  his  city  is  sacred,  his  divinities  being  one  with 
that  city.  When,  on  his  return,  he  hails  it,  it  is  not, 
as  with  Tancred,  a  poetic  compliment;  he  is  not 
merely  glad,  like  a  modern,  again  to  see  familiar  ol>- 
jects  and  to  return  to  his  home ;  his  beach,  his  moun- 
tains, the  walled  enclosure  harboring  his  countrymen, 
the  highway  with  its  tombs  preserving  the  bones  and 
manes  of  its  hero-founders,  all  that  surrounds  it  is  for 
him  a  species  of  temple.  "  Argos,  and  ye  its  native 
gods,"  says  Agamemnon,  "  I  first  salute  thee,  ye  who 
have  aided  me  in  my  return  and  in  the  vengeance  I 
have  taken  of  the  city  of  Priam !"  The  closer  we 
examine  it  the  more  do  we  find  their  sentiment  earn- 
est, their  religion  justifiable,  their  worship  well- 
founded  ;  only  later,  in  times  of  frivolity  and  decline, 
did  they  become  idolatrous.  "  If  we  represent  the 
gods  by  human  figures,"  they  said,  "  it  is  because  no 
other  form  is  more  beautiful."  But  beyond  the  ex- 
pressive form,  they  saw  floating,  as  in  a  dream,  the 

*  "La  Cit6  Antique,"  by  Fustel  de  Coulanges. 
8* 


178  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 

universal  powers  which  govern  the  soul  and  the  uni- 
verse. 

Let  us  follow  one  of  their  processions,  that  of  the 
great  Panathensea,  and  try  to  define  the  thoughts 
and  emotions  of  an  Athenian  who,  taking  part  in  the 
solemn  cortege,  came  to  visit  his  gods.  It  was  held 
at  the  beginning  of  the  month  of  September.  For 
three  days  the  whole  city  witnessed  the  games,  first, 
at  the  Odeon,  the  pompous  orchestral  series,  the  re- 
citation of  Homer's  poems,  competitions  for  voice, 
cithern  and  flute,  choruses  of  nude  youths  dancing 
the  pyrrhica,  and  others,  clothed,  forming  a  cyclic 
chorus ;  next,  in  the  stadium,  every  exercise  of  the 
naked  body — wrestling,  boxing,  the  pancratium  and 
the  pentathlon  for  men  and  for  children ;  the  simple 
and  double  race  for  naked  and  armed  men ;  the  foot- 
race with  flambeaux ;  the  race  with  horses  and  the 
chariot  race  with  two  and  four  horses  in  the  ordinary 
chariot  and  that  of  war  with  two  men,  one  of  whom 
jumping  down,  followed  alongside  running  and  then 
remounted  at  a  bound.  Pindar  says  that  "  the  gods 
were  the  friends  of  games,"  and  that  they  could  not 
be  better  honored  than  by  such  spectacles. — On  the 


ART  m  QEEECE.  179 

fourth  day  the  procession  occurred  of  which  the  Par- 
thenon frieze  has  preserved  the  image ;  at  the  head 
marched  the  pontiffs,  aged  men  selected  among  the 
handsomest,  virgins  of  noble  families,  the  deputations 
of  allied  cities  with  offerings,  then  the  bearers  of 
chased  gold  and  silver  vases  and  utensils,  athletes  on 
foot  or  on  horseback  or  on  their  chariots,  a  long  line 
of  sacrificers  and  their  victims,  and  finally  the  people 
in  their  festal  attire.  The  sacred  galley  was  put  in  • 
motion  bearing  on  its  mast  the  peplus  or  veil  for  the 
statue  of  Pallas  which  young  girls,  supported  in  the 
Erectheion,  had  embroidered.  Setting  out  from  the 
Ceramiciis  it  marched  to  Eleusis,*  making  the  circuit 
of  the  temple,  passed  along  the  northern  and  eastern 
sides  of  the  Acropolis  and  halted  near  the  Areopagus. 
There  the  veil  was  taken  down  to  be  borne  to  the 
goddess,  while  the  cortege  mounted  the  immense 
marble  flight  of  steps,  one  hundred  feet  long  by  sev- 
enty wide,  leading  to  the  Propylaea  and  the  vesti- 
bule of  the  Acropolis.  Like  the  corner  of  ancient 
Pisa  in  which  the  Cathedral,  the  Leaning  Tower,  the 
Campo-Santo  and  the  Baptistery  are  crowded  togeth- 
*  Beule,  "  L'Acropole  d'Athtoes." 


180  TEE  PHILOSOPHT  OF 

er,  this  abrupt  plateau,  wholly  devoted  to  the  gods, 
disappeared  under  sacred  monuments,  temples,  chap- 
els, colossi  and  statues ;  but  with  its  four  hundred 
feet  of  elevation  it  commanded  the  entire  country ; 
between  the  columns  and  angles  of  the  edifices,  in 
profile  against  the  sky,  the  Athenians  could  embrace 
the  half  of  their  Attica — a  circle  of  barren  mountains 
scorched  by  the  summer  sun,  the  sparkling  sea  fram- 
ed in  by  the  dull  prominence  of  its  coasts,  all  the 
grand  eternal  existences  in  which  the  gods  w^re 
rooted;  Pentelica  with  its  altars  and  the  distant  stat- 
ue of  Pallas  Athena;  Hymettus  and  Anchesmus 
where  the  colossal  eflSigies  of  Zeus  still  marked  the 
primitive  relationship  between  lofty  summits  and  the 
thunder-riven  sky. 

They  bore  the  veil  onward  to  the  Erechtheum, 
the  most  imposing  of  their  temples,  a  veritable 
ghrine  where  the  palladium,  fallen  from  heaven,  was 
kept,  the  tomb  of  Cecrops  and  the  sacred  olive,  the 
parent  of  all  the  rest.  There,  the  whole  legend,  all 
its  ceremonies '  and  all  its  divine  names,  exalted  the 
mind  with  a  vague  and  grandiose  souvenir  of  the 
early  straggles  and  first  steps  taken  in  human  civili- 


ART  IN   GREECE.  181 

zation ;  man,  in  the  half-light  of  the  myth,  obtained 
a  glimpse  of  the  antique  and  fecund  strife  of  -water, 
earth  and  fire ;  the  earth  emerging  from  the  waters, 
becoming  productive,  overspread  with  kindly  plants 
and  nutritive  grains  and  trees,  growing  in  popula- 
tion and  getting  humanized  in  the  hands  of  secret 
powers,  who  contend  with  savage  elements  ajid 
gradually,  athwart  their  chaos,  establish  the  ascen- 
dancy of  mind.  Cecrops,  the  founder,  is  symbol- 
ized by  a  creature  of  the  same  name  as  his  own,  the 
grasshopper  (Kerkops),  which  was  believed  to  be 
born  of  the  earth,  an  Athenian  insect  if  he  was  of  it, 
a  melodious  and  meagre  inhabitant  of  the  arid  hills, 
and  of  which  old  Athenians  bore  the  image  in  their 
hair.  Alongside  of  him,  the  first  inventor,  Triptole- 
mus,  the  thresher  of  grain,  had  Dysaules,  the  double 
furrow,  for  his  father  and  Gordys,  barley,  for  his 
daughter.  Still  more  significant  was  the  legend  of 
Erectheus,  the  great  ancestor.  Among  the  crudities 
of  an  infantile  imagination,  which  naively  and  oddly 
expresses  his  birth,  his  name,  signifying  the  fertile 
soil,  the  name  of  his  daughters  pure  Air,  the  Dew 
and  the  Rain,  manifest  the  idea  of  the  diy  earth  fe- 


182  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF' 

cundated  by  nocturnal  humidity.  Numerous  details 
of  the  worship  serve  to  demonstrate  its  sense. 
Maidens  who  embroidered  the  veil  are  called  Ar- 
rhephores,  the  bearers  of  dew ;  they  are  symbols  of 
the  dew  which  they  go  for  at  night  in  a  cave  near  the 
temple  of  Aphrodite.  Thallo,  the  season  of  flowers, 
and  Karpo,  the  season  of  fruits,  honored  near  by, 
are,  again,  names  of  agricultural  gods.  The  sense 
of  all  these  expressive  titles  is  buried  in  the  Athen- 
ian mind ;  he  feels  in  them,  contained  by  them  and 
indistinct,  the  history  of  his  race ;  satisfied  that  the 
manes  of  his  founders  and  ancestors  continued  to 
live  around  the  tomb,  extending  their  protection 
over  those  who  honored  their  graves,  he  supplied 
them  with  cakes,  honey  and  wine,  and,  depositing  his 
oiferings,  embraced  in  one  look,  behind  and  before 
him,  the  long  prosperity  of  his  city  and  hopefully 
associated  its  future  with  its  past. 

On  leaving  the  ancient  sanctuary  where  the  prim- 
itive Pallas  sat  beneath  the  same  roof  as  Erechtheus 
he  saw,  almost  facing  him,  the  new  temple  built  by 
Ictinus  in  which  she  dwelt  alone,  and  where  every 
thing  declared  her  glory.     What  she  was  in  early 


ABT  JIf  GREECE.  183 

days  he  scarcely  felt ;  her  physical  origin  had  vanish- 
ed under  the  development  of  her  moral  personality ; 
but  enthusiasm  is  of  searching  insight,  and  fragments 
of  legends,  hallowed  attributes  and  traditional  epi- 
thets led  the  mirid  towards  the  remote  sources 
from  which  she  had  issued.  She  was  known  to  be 
the  daughter  of  Zeus,  the  thunder-striking  sky,  and 
born  of  him  alone ;  she  had  sprung  from  his  brow 
amidst  lightning  and  the  tumult  of  the  elements ;  He- 
lios had  stood  still,  the  Earth  and  Olympus  had  trem- 
bled, the  sea  had  arisen,  a  golden  shower  and  luminous 
rays  had  overspread  the  Earth.  Primeval  men  proba- 
bly had  first  worshipped,  under  her  name,  the  serenity 
of  the  illuminated  atmosphere ;  they  had  prostrated 
themselves  on  their  knees  before  this  sudden  virginal 
brightness,  possessed  with  the  invigorating  coolness 
which  follows  the  storm ;  they  had  compared  her  to  a 
young,  energetic*  girl,  and  had  named  her  Pallas.  But 
in  this  Attica,  where  the  glory  and  transparency  of  the 
immaculate  e'ther  are  purer  than  elsewhere,  she  had 
become  Athense,  the  Athenian.  Another  of  her  ear- 
liest surnames,  Tritogeneia,  born  of  water,  also  re- 

♦  The  primitive  meaning,  probably,  of  the  word  Pallas. 


184  THE  PHILOSOPET  OF 

minded  tliem  that  she  "was  born  of  celestial  rains  or 
made  them  imagine  the  luminous  reflections  of  the 
waves.  Other  traces  of  her  origin  were  the  color  of 
her  sea-green  eyes  and  the  choice  of  her  bird,  the 
owl,  whose  eyeballs  at  night  are  clairvoyant  lights. 
Her  figure,  by  degrees,  had  become  distinct  and  her 
history  expanded.  Her  convulsive  birth  had  made 
of  her  an  armed  and  terrible  warrior,  the  companion 
of  Zeus  in  his  conflicts  with  the  rebellious  Titans. 
As  virgin  and  pure  light  she  had  gradually  become 
thought  and  intelligence,  and  she  was  called  indus- 
trious because  she  had  invented  the  arts ;  the  rider 
because  she  had  bridled  the  horse ;  the  benefactor 
because  she  removed  maladies.  Her  good  deeds  and 
her  victories  were  all  figured  on  the  walls,  and  the 
eyes  which,  from  the  fa9ade  of  the  temple,  were  di- 
rected to  the  immense  landscape,  embraced  simulta- 
neously the  two  moments  of  religion,  one  explained 
by  the  other  and  united  in  the  soul  through  the  sub- 
lime sensation  of  perfect  beauty.  To  the  south,  on 
the  horizon,  they  gazed  on  the  infinite  sea,  Poseidon, 
who  embraces  and  shakes  the  earth,  the  azure  god 
whose  arms  encircle  the  coast  and  the  isles,  and,  with- 


AMT  IN   OBEEGE.  185 

out  turning  the  eye,  they  beheld  him  again  under  the 
western  crown  of  the  Parthenon,  erect  and  turbulent, 
rearing  his  muscular  torso  and  powerful  nude  body 
with  the  indignant  air  of  an  angered  god,  whilst  be- 
hind him  Amphitrite,  the  almost  naked  Aphrodite  on 
the  knees  of  Thalassa,  Latona  with  her  two  children, 
Leucothea,  Halirrhethius  and  Eurytus  disclosed  in 
the  waving  inflection  of  their  infantile  or  feminine 
forms,  the  grace  and  play,  the  freedom  and  eternal 
smile  of  the  sea.  On  the  same  marble  front  Pallas, 
victorious,  subdued  the  horses  which  Poseidon,  with 
a  blow  of  his  trident  caused  to  spring  from  the 
ground,  driving  them  towards  the  divinities  of  the 
soil,  to  Cecrops  the  founder,  to  their  first  ancestor 
Erechtheus,  the  man  of  the  earth,  to  his  three  daugh- 
ters who  moisten  the  parched  ground,  to  Callirhoe  the 
beautiful  fountain  and  to  Ilissus  the  shaded  rivulet ; 
the  eye  had  only  to  turn  downward  after  having  con- 
templated their  images  to  discern  them  in  real  signif- 
icance beneath  the  plateau. 

But  Pallas  herself  radiated  throughout  the  entire 
space.  There  was  no  need  of  reflection  or  of  science, 
it  needed  only  the  eyes  and  heart  of  a  poet  or  an  artist 


186  THE  PEILOSOPHT  OF 

to  arrive  at  the  affinity  of  the  goddess  with  natural 
objects,  to  feel  her  present  in  the  splendor  of  the 
bright  atmosphere,  in  the  glow  of  the  agile  light,  in 
the  purity  of  that  delicate  atmosphere  to  which  the 
Athenians  attributed  the  vivacity  of  their  invention 
and  their  genius ;  she  herself  was  the  genius  of  the 
territory,  the  spirit  itself  of  the  nation ;  it  was  her 
benefactions,  her  inspiration,  her  work  which  they 
beheld  everywhere  displayed  as  far  as  the  eye  could 
see ;  in  the  olive  groves  and  on  the  diapered  slopes 
of  tillage,  in  the  three  harbors  swarming  with 
arsenals  and  crowded  with  vessels,  in  the  long  and 
strong  walls  by  which  the  city  joined  the  sea ;  in  the 
beautiful  city  itself,  which,  with  its  temples,  its  gym- 
nasia, its  Pnyx,  all  its  rebuilt  monuments  and  its  re- 
cent habitations,  covered  the  back  and  declivities  of 
the  hills  and  which  through  its  arts,  its  industries,  its 
festivals,  its  invention,  its  indefatigable  courage,  be- 
coming the  "school  of  Greece,"  spread  its  empire 
over  the  sea  and  its  ascendancy  over  the  entire  na- 
tion. 

At   this  moment  the   gates   of  the  Parthenon 
might   open   and   display    among    offerings,   vases, 


ABT  m  GREECE.  187 

crowns,  armor,  casques,  and  silver  masks,  the  colos- 
sal effigy,  the  Protectress,  the  Virgin,  the  Victorious, 
erect  and  motionless,  her  lance  resting  against  her 
shoulder,  her  buckler  standing  by  her  side,  holding  a 
Victory  of  ivory  and  gold  in  her  right  hand,  the 
golden  aegis  on  her  breast,  a  narrow  casque  of  gold 
on  her  head,  in  a  grand  gold  robe  of  diverse  tints ;  her 
face,  feet,  hands  and  arms  relieving  against  the 
splendor  of  her  weapons  and  drapery  with  the  warm 
and  vital  whiteness  of  ivory ;  her  clear  eyes  of  pre- 
cious stones  gleaming  with  fixed  brilliancy  in  the 
semi-obscurity  of  the  painted  cella.  In  imagining 
her  serene  and  sublime  expression,  Phidias,  certain- 
ly, had  conceived  a  power  which  surpassed  every 
human  standard — one  of  those  universal  forces  which 
direct  the  course  of  things,  the  active  intelligence 
which,  at  Athens,  was  the  soul  of  the  country. 
He  heeded,  perhaps,  in  his  breast,  the  reverberating 
echo  of  the  new  physical  system  and  philosophy 
which,  still  confounding  spirit  and  matter,  con- 
sidered thought  as  "the  purest  and  most  subtle 
of  substances,"  a  sort  of  ether  everywhere  diffused 
to  produce  and  maintain  the    order  of  the  uni- 


188  AMT  IN  GREECE. 

verse  ;*  in  his  mind  was  thus  formed  a  still  higher 
conception  than  that  of  the  people;  his  Pallas 
surpassed  that  of  .^gina,  already  so  grave,  in  all 
the  majesty  of  the  things  of  eternity. 

Through  a  long  circuit,  and  in  gradually  approx- 
imating circles,  we  have  traced  the  original  sources 
of  the  statue,  and  we  have  now  reached  the  vacant 
space,  still  recognizable,  where  its  pedestal  for- 
merly stood,  and  from  which  it^  august  form  has 
disappeared. 

*  According  to  the  text  of  Anaxagoras,  Phidias  had  listened  to 
Anaxagoras  in  the  house  of  Pericles  the  same  as  Michael  Angelo  lis- 
tened to  the  Platonlsts  of  the  Beuaissance  in  the  domicile  of  Lorenzo  de 
Medici. 


THB  END. 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hllgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  It  was  borrowed. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  156  078     8 


